Dinosaur fossils also have these bird-like claws except much higher up on the leg where they would be incapable of functioning as opposable appendages for clutching objects. Quill nodes on the wing bones are strong evidence Rahona had feathers and was an adept flier. These, she argues, are classic characteristics of primitive birds. Rahona also probably had teeth, Forster said, although its skull was not found. We suspect it had teeth because everything immediately above it on the family tree had teeth,'' she said.
Timing lends some validity to that.
This epoch is marked by the dying out of toothed birds and dinosaurs and the development of early mammals. It's not clear from the fossil evidence how Rahona lived and hunted. It might have flown and pounced on snakes and small rodents like a hawk or large owl. Or, it could have chased them down like predatory dinosaurs. The idea that birds and dinosaurs were linked was first proposed by British paleontologist Thomas Huxley more than a century ago.