Chinese Dragon.

Dinosaur fossils are so plentiful in China's Liaoning Province, even the locals are part-time paleontologists. When fossil hunters from Beijing came looking for evidence of ancient creatures, they picked a spot in the middle of rolling cornfields and, with the help of local farmers, picked and shoveled their way through eons of sedimentary layers of shale. Eventually they came upon a trove of long-extinct turtles, birds and dinosaurs. By fall 2001, paleontologist Xu Xing had grown so accustomed to unearthing weird creatures, he didn't think much of what appeared to be the partially preserved skeleton of a dinosaur with feathers.

When Xu studied the fossil over the next few weeks, though, it dawned on him what an odd creature he had discovered. It had four slender limbs and was covered in feathers from head to foot. It appears to have been adapted for gliding through the air from tree to tree, much like a present-day flying squirrel. He found to his surprise that several farmers had discovered similar fossils. He tested them with X-rays and found them to be authentic. "I thought, 'Maybe this is the greatest discovery I've ever made'," he told NEWSWEEK.

Xu's dinos would make a valuable addition to any rogues' gallery of terrifying creatures. Among the remains he and his team have studied is a new species of microraptor, a 120-million-year-old cousin of the velociraptors of "Jurassic Park." Named Microraptor gui after a Chinese paleontologist, it measured just under a meter in length--about the size of a large eagle--but boasted sharp teeth and claws and an appetite for fresh meat. And it could swoop down from the treetops on unsuspecting ground-dwellers.

Xu's findings, published last week in the journal Nature, have paleontologists buzzing with excitement. "This is clearly a really amazing specimen," said Kevin Padian, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Scientists now generally agree that birds most likely descended from dinosaurs, and Xu's find adds to the already solid body of evidence. But in other respects, his creature throws the field in disarray. Almost all feathered dinosaurs had feathers on their winglike arms but none on their hind legs, which tend to be big and powerful--suited to running fast. For this reason, ...