Stranger than fiction: Avatar dinosaur fossils found in China

Some of the most visually stunning sequences from director James Cameron's blockbuster movie Avatar involved graceful flying creatures that were ridden by blue humanlike beings facing ecological destruction on a moon called Pandora.

It turns out that an animal very similar to those Avatar creatures, known in the movie as Ikran, existed on Earth long ago.

Scientists announced on Thursday the discovery of fossils in China of a new species of flying reptile called a pterosaur that lived 120 million years ago and so closely resembled the creatures from the 2009 film that they named it after them.