Mini bird-munching dinosaur discovered in China

A new dinosaur discovery has proved you don't have to be big to be fierce.

Scientists have found a new relative of the Velociraptor family that was roughly the size of a barn owl, after examining shoulder and arm bones in China.

Named Jian changmaensis - after a mythical flying creature in Chinese folklore - the predator stalked the Earth and skies about 120 million years ago

It liked to snack on birds when it got peckish, even though it was about the same size as one!

The remains of Jian were discovered in China's Gansu province, which is known for its ancient well-preserved bird fossils.

Looking at the bones, scientists say Jian could have glided like a flying squirrel while hunting.

"Jian would look like a small Velociraptor – the real Velociraptor, not the scaly thing in Jurassic Park – but with long feathers on both the forelimbs and hindlimbs instead of just the former," palaeontologist Matt Lamanna, from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said.

The velociraptor belonged to a group of dinosaurs called dromaeosaurs, or raptors. These bird-like dinosaurs were specialist hunters and covered in long feathers.

According to the remains they found, Jian was likely covered in feathers like its relatives, and capable of living on ground and in trees.

"I often describe Jian as a Velociraptor trying to be a flying squirrel, except, of course, that Jian was predatory and flying squirrels aren't," Lamanna added.

Next to the dinosaur's bones were broken bird bones crushed into pellets, which is similar to how modern-day owls digest their food.

While its remains are incomplete, researchers believe that Jian looked a bit like a Microraptor, which had feather-covered arms and legs, giving it the appearance of having four wings.

These dinos were "extraordinarily closely related to the earliest birds," Lamanna said.