A spectacular array of beautifully preserved fossils unearthed in northeastern China over the past two decades provides a unique portal on life 160 million years ago in the Jurassic Period, an international team of scientists said this week.
Among them are outlandish feathered dinosaurs, a quirky flying reptile, the earliest known gliding mammal and the earliest known swimming mammal. Writing in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, they said the plant and animal fossils collectively represent a distinct ecological grouping — or biota — of life forms that existed alongside one another.
The fossil record of life on Earth is notoriously spotty, with some spans of time still all but unknown. That is not the case in the Daohugou Biota, named for a village in the region where the fossils have been found.