How to Draw a Microraptor

When drawing a dinosaur, it's important to learn about its anatomy, range of motion, behavior and surroundings. I'm going to discuss these factors in this post. Even if you're not interested in drawing a dinosaur, you could learn a lot from this post. Today, the dinosaur I will focus on is microraptor.

Microraptor had four wings. One on each of its forarms and one on each of its hind legs. It also had feathers on its tail that could fan out at the end. It lived in the early to mid Cretaceous period in tropical forests in China. Microraptors were arboreal and likely nocturnal judging from the scleral ring found fossilized in its eye socket. Here is my source of information on scleral rings in relation to nocturnal lifestyles of dinosaurs: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110414/full/news.2011.236.html

It's important to use a reliable reference to get the proportions correct. One of the best references to use when drawing a dinosaur is its skeletal structure. Here is a good example below drawn by someone who goes by the name of Qilong on deviantart.

Image source: http://qilong.deviantart.com/art/Microraptor-Skeletons-27326378
(Not my creation)

According to http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2008/10/08/microraptor-the-dinosaur-that-flew-like-a-biplane/, microraptor lacked the muscle to take off from the ground and couldn't run fast enough to take off from the ground without damaging its feathers. This lends eividence to the theory that flight started from the trees down (at least in the microraptor species) instead of the alternative theory that it evolved from the ground up. Others may disagree, but this is what I gather from articles I've read. This is also more evidence that strongly supports that microraptor was arboreal. Since it was arboreal, lived near the equator, and lived in a time period full of tropical jungles, it probably lived in a tropical rainforest.

There is an interesting documentary about microraptor by NOVA called "The Four Winged Dinosaur" that I highly recommend. It contains detailed models, animations, and explanations by scientists about how microraptor positioned its body when gliding. According to this documentary, microraptor would jump off a tree in the direction it intended to land and start out with its legs outstretched behind it after the initial leap and its forarms extended outward toward the tail aligned under its body (dinosaur hips weren't designed to spread legs out horizontally). When its legs were outstretched behind it, the feathers on the legs would form a canopy that created an air foil over the tail. As it got closer to landing, perhaps on the trunk of another tree as suggested in the documentary, it would bring its hing legs forward directly underneath. This wold cause its body to turn upward so it could land with its legs and arms toward the tree from a ventral position.

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Horse_Axes_2.JPG
(This diagram is not my creation either.)

Tropical birds in modern times are often very brightly colored. Since birds are the closest relatives to dinosaurs and microraptor was one of the closest things to a tropical bird at that time, I hypothesize that microraptor could have been brightly colored as well.

If you're going to draw the environment around the dinosaur, you should know what type of vegetation would be in the surroundings. Microraptor lived in a tropical climate during the Cretaceous. Since it was arboreal, this is strong evidence that it lived in forests where there were lots of trees. Vegetation common in tropical forests during this time included ferns, cycads, gingkos, conifers, and czekanowskian trees (an extinct group of trees with needle-like leaves). Source: http://animals.howstuffworks.com/dinosaurs/early-cretaceous-period.htm Generally, in Cretaceous forests, the low growing plants were ferns. Medium height plants were cycads. The tallest trees could grow up to 60 feet tall and included gingkos, conifers, and czekanowskian trees. Angiosperms also were present during this time period for the first time. If anyone has more accurate information about flora in tropical forests at this time, please comment or e-mail me.

Here is an interesting discussion on the position of the wings of microraptor while grounded. (Page from Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings.) It suggests that microraptor positioned its arms backward in a strange looking position to keep its feathers from dragging on the ground.

I happen to have taken a class on dinosaurs last semester and in one of the lab packet assignments, it mentioned that dromaeosaurs had stiff tails because their tendons were ossified. Microraptor is a small dromaeosaur, so because of this, microraptor probably could not move its tail very much. It was not prehensile like a monkey. It might have been able to move side to side more easily than up and down and could probably only move up and down slightly at the base of the tail.

Pronation of the arms:"One thing you have to watch out for is the position of the arms. Dromeosaurs supposedly were unable to pronate thier wrists, so try draw their hands with the palms facing towards the animals belly when at rest, and facing the ground if outstretched. These characteristics probably limited limited microraptors arms (and possibly those of other theropods) to hugging/grasping motions below the neckline, and possibly something like wing flapping. From what i can recall this is how most experts believe dromeosaurs use their arms." - Maniraptoran from "The Fossil Forum"

Here is my attempt at drawing microraptors. I made an effort to get the proportions and posture correct. I may work on it some more later to add more details.

(My creation)