You are in the forests of Asia, 235 million years ago.

The air in the Triassic Madygen forest was thick and humid, buzzing with the sound of giant insects. You crouched low behind a fern, watching a patch of sunlight on a fallen, moss-covered log. That’s when I saw it—a flash of yellowish-green, but it didn't move like a lizard.

It was small, perhaps the size of a pigeon, with ridiculously long, slender legs that anchored it to the bark. But the back—the back was unmistakable. Rising from its shoulders were two pairs of long, frond-like, hockey-stick-shaped plumes, waving in the gentle breeze. They weren't feathers, not really, but they shimmered like keratin, almost like the spines of a strange fish, yet flexible.

It stretched, and the long plumes flopped playfully. It was a "prehistoric oddball," a creature that thrived in its own weird way, somewhere between a lizard, a bird, and a flying squirrel. The creature, Longisquama, froze, turning its bird-like head toward your hiding spot, its eye large and curious…