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Scientists discovered a new Dinosaur species In the Gobi desert of Mongolia. Called Duonychus tsogtbaatariThe dinosaur has fingers scratched by two feet on each hand, one less than his comrade Therizinosaurie.
Duonychus, which means two claws in Greek, measured about 10 feet high and weighed around 570 pounds, and belonged to dinosaurs called Thérizinosaures, which were characterized by a Strange set of features: Huge claws that would have been used to coven the leaves of trees, leaf -shaped teeth, hip bones oriented backwards, a long neck ending in a small head, and covered with feathers in the shape of a feather.
They lived in Asia And North America During the Cretaceous period, 145 to 66 million years ago.
Despite only two claws, the researchers, who described the specimen in a study published Tuesday The ISCIENCE JOURNALsaid Duonychus was an “efficient Gasper” that could reach branches or strips of vegetation up to almost 5 inches in diameter.
NBC News contacted the research team to comment.
The specimen was searched in 2012 by researchers from the Paleontology Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia of the Bayanshiree formation of the desert, which dates back 90 million years and is known for its exceptional diversity of Thérizinosaurs.
The fossil was a partial skeleton without skull or legs, but the hands were “exceptionally preserved”, according to the study. The Duonychus individual was not entirely mature and his claws measured about one foot long.
Although the Thérizinosaurs were part of the group of theropods, which included meat eaters like Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus, they mainly ate large shrub leaves and trees.
This is a “new discovery, and the two claws are interesting,” said Michael Benton, professor of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, which was not involved in the study.
The dinosaurs had five fingers, just like human beings, but they quickly lost two over time, most of the dinosaurs with three fingers, Benton told NBC News on Wednesday in an email.
“So going down to two was unusual,” he said.
The number of figures does not matter in terms of hanging and drawing, said Benton, adding that the third finger may be a “load” because of its short length.
“He shows that dinosaurs were incredibly diverse and diversified in their forms and functions,” said Benton.
The fossil registers of Thérizinosaurie are “especially abundant” in the deposits of Cretaceous through East Asia, in particular in Mongolia and China, according to the study.
The United Nations educational, scientific, scientific and cultural organization (UNESCO) called the Mongolian desert of Gobi the “largest tank of fossil of dinosaurs” in the world “.
