She added that more information was needed. He said he has found another fossil, in a private collection in China, that contains the mirror image of the supposed tail of the Archaeoraptor. Fossils often break in two when the rocks containing them are split in excavation. Xu, of China's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, said in an interview. Paleontologist Stephen Czerkas, who bought the Archaeoraptor fossil at a gem and mineral sale in Utah, said Xu may be right.
Research is still ongoing.
Still, Czerkas said the Archaeoraptor, even without its tail, remained a very important find. Xu said he could not disclose further details about his find until he finished a research article for Nature magazine to be published later this year. He has invited U.S. scientists to visit Beijing to examine his find. The fossils were unearthed in western Liaoning province, a barren, semi-desert region about 260 miles northeast of Beijing that is a treasure trove for paleontologists. The region, which in prehistoric times was a humid lake area with abundant vegetation and wildlife, has yielded spectacular fossils of ancient birds and of dinosaurs with birdlike characteristics that some scientists say are evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs.