Somewhere in China 120 million years ago a pair of Microraptors are startled out of the bushes by a curious young hadrosaurid dinosaur. Microraptors are perhaps unique in being a prehistoric animal whose existence was anticipated before its discovery. In 1915- some 85 years before the first fossils were found, a naturalist William Beebe postulated the existence of a creature he dubbed 'tetrapteryx'- a four winged animal intermediate between reptiles and birds. Ilustrations of this hypothetical creature bare a strong superficial resembelance to reconstructions of Microraptor- although its actual place in the evolution of birds is still hotly debated.