The origin of birds was long debated but now there is general agreement that birds evolved from a group of small, ground-dwelling dinosaurs called theropods. The poster child for bird origins has been Archaeopteryx¸ a crow-sized, feathered creature found fossilized in Germany in the late Jurassic deposits (147 million years ago). Archaeopteryx has feathers and looks like a bird, but it also has many features such as three clawed toes linking its ancestry to theropod dinosaurs. The 2012 discovery of a small, feathered dinosaur fossil (Eosinopteryx brevipenna) in China provided more clues about bird origins; unlike Archeopteryx, Eosinopteryx had a small wingspan and scanty plumage on its legs and tail, suggesting that it lived on the ground, running more than flying. Both of these feathered animals lived in the late Jurassic, and comparing them with each other and with earlier theropod dinosaurs can provide scientists with new evidence about how and when flight evolved in this dinosaur group.