Arising from: X. Xu et al. Nature 421, 335–340 (2003); F. Zhang & Z. Zhou Nature 431, 925 (2004); X. Xu et al. reply; F. Zhang et al. reply

Our understanding of the origin of birds, feathers and flight has been greatly advanced by new discoveries of feathered non-avian dinosaurs, but functional analyses have not kept pace with taxonomic descriptions. Zhang and Zhou describe feathers on the tibiotarsus of a new basal enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of China¹. They infer, as did Xu and colleagues from similar feathers on the small non-avian theropod Microraptor found in similar deposits², that these leg feathers had aerodynamic properties and so might have been used in some kind of flight.

1. Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
2. Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812, USA

Correspondence to: Kevin Padian¹ Email: kpadian@.berkeley.edu

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