Two-fingered dinosaur used its huge claws to eat leaves

A new species of dinosaur found on a Mongolian building site has the large fully preserved claw ever found. The bipedale, herbaceous animal had only two fingers on the ECH hand, which it may have used to grab branches and pull them against the mouth.

The 90 million-year-old fossil-as included parts of the pelvis, both arms and hands and several vertebrae found near Khanbogd in the Gobi Desert in 2012, but it has only now been examined correctly and given the scientific name Duonychus Tsogtbaatari. The name of the family means “two claws” and the species name honors Mongolian Palæontologist Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar.

Duonychus is a relatively smaller of Therizinosaurusthat contains in the film Jurassic World Dominion. Yoshitsugu Kobayashi at Hokkaido University in Japan and Hans Colleugues estimates the dinosaur would have been about 3 meters long and weighed approx. 270 kg.

“The discovery of Duonychus Tsogtbaatari is a big deal because the first nown isinosaur with only two fingers, “says Kobayashi.”

Alterner, five groups of theropods evolved to have only two fingers, the most famous creature Tyrannosaurus.

Duonychus‘s claws are almost 30 long centimeters. Unusual, the claw caps – made of keratin, the same material as for nails – are preserved.

“Keratin usually doesn’t fossilize. It falls long before bones do,” says Kobayashi. “Most of the time, when we find dinosaur claws, we only look at the bone core. But in life, the news clerk would have been covered with a thick keratinian, which made it long and more curved.”

Team Member Darla Zelenitsky at the University of Calgary, Canada, says it was extremely surprising to find a two-feet therizinosaur: “We were like, wow, this is really bizarre for one of these dinosaur.”

“This is the big fully preserved 3D -Dinosaur -Klo, which has been found far,” she says. “This claw is not presented as an overview of the rock, which is the bone, which is clearly cleared of fossil that has the true claws preserved. This itch is actually three -dimensional and forms a casting floor the underlying fingerbone, similar to what we see in Paws of Dogs and Cats.”

The researchers believe the claws were an adaptation to grab and pull down vegetation. With fewer fingers, each one could be stronger and more flexible, enabling a tighter, more controlled gip, says Kobayashi.

“The curved claws and extreme flexion suggest that it could more easily connect to branches or clusters of leaves,” he says. “Three fingers may have just got in the way, while two gave a more précise and effective grip.”