ZHAO CHUANG
Velociraptors are perhaps the most terrifying dinosaur of the Cretaceous Era. Lightning quick, smart enough to track prey, full of an insatiable desire for your blood and flesh; let’s just say you and your fists wouldn’t last more than seven seconds.
You might think a bird that fear-inducing couldn’t get any scarier. You’d be wrong. A newly unearthed fossil reveals that before they were the death machines you are familiar with, they were death machines from ABOVE. From the BBC:
Scientists have discovered a winged dinosaur – an ancestor of the velociraptor – that they say was on the cusp of becoming a bird.
The 6ft 6in (2m) creature was almost perfectly preserved in limestone, thanks to a volcanic eruption that had buried it in north-east China.
The dinosaur has been named Zhenyuanlong, meaning “Zhenyuan’s dragon” – in honour of the man who procured the fossil for the museum in Jinzhou, allowing it to be studied.
A DRAGON.
Scientists believe the dinosaur was probably too big and its wings too weak for it to fly, but I don’t buy that for a second. That thing rained fire down from above, Emilia Clarke on its back screaming ‘Dracarys,’ killing everything. It wasn’t a meteor that wrecked the dinosaurs. It was one bad ass velociraptor with wings.
Man. Ancient times were fucking cool.
[H/T Davey Barrett]