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Preserved tracks suggest non-avian dinosaurs used their wings to run

Not all winged dinosaurs were necessarily capable of full flight, but this anatomical feature may have enabled them to travel further by flapping or gliding

Velociraptors and other raptors (dromaeosaurids) are the ancestors of modern birds, but their lineage split into avian and non-avian, or “paravian”, lines about 170 million years ago. Despite having feathers and wings, paravian dinosaurs generally seemed to lack the wingspan needed to offset their body weight, says team member Michael Pittman at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. But Pittman, Dececchi and their colleagues suspected that some paravian dinosaurs could fly, or at least glide, before full flight evolved in birds, based on muscles in their upper bodies.

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