This is a dragon, "as it was recovered in the hands of the engineer Cornelius Meyer" — at least according to the inscription in the picture. Said picture comes from a book written by Meyer, himself, in 1696. On the book's cover is an etching of the dragon as he purports it looked — alive — in 1691.
This charming little fellow is Eosinopteryx brevipenna, a feathered dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic period more than 150 million years ago. Recently unearthed in northwestern China, Eosinopteryx suggests the evolution of flight is more complex than we suspected.
Scientists have found a way to uncover feathered dinosaurs' true colors, and one of the first creatures to come under inspection is none other than Archaeopteryx — an iconic but mysterious theropod believed by many to be the "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds.
The sprawling frame of Archaeopteryx is one of the most widely-recognized images from the world of paleontology, yet fewer than a dozen specimens of the iconic "first bird" have been unearthed since the the species was first discovered in 1861.
The eleven specimens of Archaeopteryx are some of the most iconic and captivating fossils in existence. The fingers end in claws, the tail is long and bony, and the head – arched back in the throes of death – contains toothed jaws. But the splayed arms are lined with the faint but unmistakeable outlines of feathers.…
It might not be immediately obvious just how birds could evolve something as complex as the wings needed for flight. But that's just it: flight was basically incidental to the real adaptation. The secret is a little something called flap-running.
The complex evolutionary relationships between birds and dinosaurs has only really started to become clear in the last 15 years. But one brave thinker in 1897 knew the real truth: it was all down to birds and reptiles doing it.