Xianglong

Taxobox
name = "Xianglong"
fossil_range = Early Cretaceous

---

image_width = 250px
image_caption =
regnum=Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
ordo = Squamata
subordo = Iguania
genus = "Xianglong"
genus_authority = Li "et al.", 2007
subdivision_ranks=Species
subdivision=
*"X. zhaoi" Li "et al.", 2007 (type)

"Xianglong" (meaning "flying lizard" in Chinese) is a genus of Cretaceous lizard discovered in the Liaoning Province of China. [ [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,259900,00.html?sPage=fnc.science/evolution Fox News: Ancient Lizard Glided on Stretched Ribs] ] It is known from LPM 000666, a single complete skeleton with skin impressions. The specimen comes from the Barremian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation, near Yizhou. The most notable feature about "Xianlong" is its bizarre oversized ribs, eight on each side, which were attached to a membrane and allowed the lizard to glide. It was an acrodont lizard, and a cladistic analysis indicates it was grouped with iguanians such as agamines, chamaeleonids, and leiolepidines.cite journal |author=Pi-Peng Li, Ke-Qin Gao, Lian-Hai Hou, and Xing Xu |year=2007 |title=A gliding lizard from the Early Cretaceous of China |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=104 |issue=13 |pages=5507–5509 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0609552104 |format=pdf |url=http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/104/13/5507.pdf]

The fossil specimen found was 15.5 centimeters (6.1 in) long, 9.5 centimeters (3.7 in) of which was tail, but the describers say it was a juvenile. So far this is the only known fossil gliding lizard, though there are other unrelated animals that also use their ribs to glide.

Gliding ability

Xianglong is one of the few creatures that glide using their ribs. Other creatures, such as the flying squirrel and the Malabar Flying Frog, "Rhacophorus malabaricus", have a different membrane attachment, toes to toes or limb to limb. Two creatures use the same way to glide, the present day Flying Lizard (genus "Draco", Latin for dragon) and a Triassic prehistoric lizard fossil know as "Kuehneosaurus", but the Triassic look-alike lived over 100 million years before "Xianglong". Despite the 11 centimeter (4.5 inch) "rib-span", the lizard might have been quite agile in the air, possibly to escape the feathered dinosaurs that coexisted with it, such as the gliding "screaming biplane of the forest", "Microraptor".

"Xianglong" had slightly curved claws, indicating that it was arboreal. Of course, it needed to be in order to get in its "gliding mode".

Xu Xing, a Chinese paleontologist and one of the describers of "Xianglong", states that can probably "Xianlong" could have glided as much as half a football field, much farther than that of today's "Draco".

Citations

External links

*http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070320-gliding-lizard.html
*http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070319_gliding_lizard.html