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Researchers have discovered the largest "four-winged" dinosaur, according to a new study.

The newfound predator has the longest feathers yet outside of birds. According to researchers, the findings yield insights on how dinosaurs may have flown. 

The feathered dinosaur is 125-million-year-old and is named Changyuraptor yangi. It sports feathers over its body, including its arms and legs, which give an impression as if it had two pair of wings. 

The fossil was unearthed in 2012 in Liaoning province in northeastern China. 

"The vast majority of feathered dinosaurs in Liaoning are collected by farmers who live there," said study author Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist and director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, in the press release. 

According to analysis, the fossils discovered are of a fully-grown adult. 

"Microraptorines are thought to be very close cousins of birds, sharing a common raptor ancestor," Chiappe added. "It's not known yet whether a four-wing body is something unique to microraptorines, or something the common ancestor of birds and microraptorines had, that was later lost in the bird lineage."

Researchers estimated Changyuraptor to be 4-foot-long and weighing about 9 lbs. 

When Changyuraptor was alive, the area in which it lived "was a broad peninsula or wedge into the ocean, with volcanoes," Chiappe said. "It was a moist temperate forest, mostly of conifer trees and gingkos, with dry hot summers and pretty cold winters. There were a variety of meat-eating and plant-eating dinosaurs in the area, including Yutyrannus, a feathered relative of Tyrannosaurus maybe 27 to 30 feet (8.2 to 9.1 m) long."

The findings of the study has been reported in the journal Nature Communications.