Zhenyuanlong

Zhenyuanlong (meaning ''"Zhenyuan's dragon", from Chinese Pinyin 龙/龍 lóng "dragon") is a genus of dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China. It lived during the Aptian age of the early Cretaceous period, approximately 125 million years ago. It is known from a single specimen belonging to the species Zhenyuanlong suni (Chinese: 孫氏振元龍). This type specimen preserved a nearly complete skeleton that contains traces of feathers, including long tail feathers and large wings. In addition to further complicating diversity of Liaoning dromaeosaurids, this specimen provides the first direct evidence of well-developed pennaceous feathers in a large, non-flying dromaeosaur, raising the question of what function such wings would serve.

==Discovery== The specimen was found by a local farmer near Sihedang in Jianchang, Liaoning Province and was later secured for study at the Jinzhou Paleontological Museum by Zhenyuan Sun, a representative of the museum. There it was further prepared by Zhang Y.-Q. In 2015, the type species Zhenyuanlong suni'' was named and described by paleontologists Lü Junchang of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing and Stephen Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. The generic name combines Zhenyuan Sun's given name with the Chinese Pinyin long, meaning "dragon". The specific name refers to his family name. Zhenyuanlong was one of eighteen dinosaur taxa from 2015 to be described in open access or free-to-read journals.