Pronunciation: EE
Meaning: Wing
Author/s: Xu et al. (2015)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Hebei Province, China
Discovery Chart Position: #894
Yi qi
The same basic, feathery wing plan is shared by birds and the dinosaurs that have them, which you would expect, bearing in mind the former are the last living representatives of the latter. Ji qi, however, has a weird bony prong protruding from each wrist that is considerably longer than its forearm (which itself is longer than its lower leg) and is unknown in any bird or dinosaur, theropod or otherwise. Furthermore, rippled sheets of membranous tissue are preserved in patches between said prongs and the long digits of the hand, so although a theropod dinosaur with a complete body covering of feathers, the wings of Yi (and probably all scansoriopterygids) appear to be more like those of bats and other flying or gliding mammals than those of birds.
(Strange wing)Etymology
In Mandarin, Yi (pronounced EE) means "wing" and the species epithet qi (pronounced chee) means "strange".
Discovery
The remains of Yi were discovered in the Tiaojishan Formation near Mutoudeng Village, Qinglong County, Hebei Province, China, by Mr. Jianrong Wang. Being a farmer, he never bothered logging collection data, but the specimen's provenance and authenticity were confirmed by a series of stringent tests including CT scans, and sampling and comparisons of the sediment in which it was encased. The holotype (STM 31-2, housed at the Shandong Tianyu Museum) is a partial skeleton, including a short-snouted skull and robust, down-turned lower jaw, and associated soft tissue, preserved on a slab and counter-slab.
