The father of flying fis discovered in China

Palaeontologists say they have found the world's oldest flying fish, a strange, creature that glided over water in a bid to evade predators, 240 million years ago. Fossils in Chinese museum collections have been dusted off, dated and categorised to reveal that the flying fish is a much older than thought, the researcher wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

    A specimen named Potanichtjys xingyiensis lived in the middle Triassic period between 235 million and 242 million years. It was already gliding some 80 million years before the emergence of birds, which are thought to be the descendants of small feathery dinosaurs. Scientists believe that flying fish evolved out of a need to flee attack from predators. The newly named specimen was only six inches long and had four "wings" - two big, adapted pectoral fins and a smaller, auxiliary pelvic pair. The fish had a large, forked tail fin that may have been used to launch it for over-water gliding.