Microraptor Facts for Kids
MY-kroh-RAP-ter · its name means “small thief”
A tiny feathered dinosaur with four wings and shiny black feathers.
- 📏 24 in60 cm1 long
- ⚖️ weight: not yet checked
- 🕰️ the Cretaceous
- 🍽️ meat
Microraptor was a small dinosaur with feathers. It had wings on its arms and on its legs, too. It could glide from tree to tree.
Microraptor had long feathers on its arms and on its legs, so it had four wings. It also had a long tail with two long feathers at the end. It lived in forests and probably climbed trees and glided from one to another.
Microraptor's fossils come from Liaoning in northeastern China, where fine mud kept the feathers of many small dinosaurs and early birds. Scientists studied tiny parts of its feather fossils and found that its feathers were black and shiny, a little like a crow's. It shows that wings were not only for birds: some dinosaurs had wings, too. Scientists still argue about whether it glided or flapped.
Every dinosaur number is scientists’ best guess from bones, so each one says where it came from.
How big was Microraptor?
Microraptor in numbers
| Length (nose to tail) | 24 in60 cm1maximum |
|---|---|
| Height at the hips | no checked number yet |
| Weight | no checked number yet |
| When it lived | no checked number yet |
| What it ate | small animals, including fish and birds |
| Fossils found in | Liaoning, in northeastern China |
| What kind | a theropod: a two-legged dinosaur, the group birds came from |
Wow!
- It had four wings: two on its arms and two on its legs.
- Its feathers were black and shiny.
- It was a small cousin of Velociraptor and Deinonychus.
🦴 Microraptor’s bones
Books about Microraptor, free at the library
Ask a grown-up to tap the button: it shows where to borrow a book about Microraptor for free.
Where was the land back then?
The continents were in different places when Microraptor lived, in the Cretaceous. Open Planet Earth, pick Drifting continents, and slide back in time to see where the land was.
Its neighbours in time
Where these numbers come from
- Smithsonian Institution (si.edu), educator's guide for the film Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia, checked 30 October 2026.
- Wikidata, Microraptor (Q310537), checked 30 October 2026.
To read more: the Natural History Museum’s Dino Directory (see also, not copied).