New, Much Smaller Cousin To T-Rex Unveiled
Having only one claw on each forelimb and standing about the size of a parrot, a tiny distant cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex was discovered in China and named Linhenykus monodactylus, after the city of Linhe in Inner Mongolia where the fossilized remains were found.
The remains of the dinosaur representing a sub-branch of the theropods, which include a partial skeleton, bones of the vertebrae, forelimb, hind limbs, and a partial pelvis, were removed from sediments between 84 and 75 million years old in what archaeologists have dubbed: The Upper Cretaceous Wulansuhai Formation.
Besides T-Rex, therapods also include the Velociraptor, from which scientists believe the bird kingdom, as we know it today evolved.
Details surrounding the process were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This small cousin of the terrifying T-Rex did have unusual claws but its presence would hardly have raised a hair of fright on any creature crossing its path.
“You’d see a very small animal, probably below your hip height, with a very small skull. It’s not very threatening because its teeth are very small compared to other carnivorous dinosaurs and there’s some evidence it may have been an insectivore,” said Michael Pittman of University College London, who was part of the discovery team.
It is possible that this small, mono-digit creature underwent the process of natural selection in which unused limbs disappeared and as such, may mark the end of one significant evolutionary route.
“Non-avian theropods start with five fingers but evolved to have only three fingers in later forms. Tyrannosaurs were unusual in having just two fingers but the one-fingered Linhenykus shows how extensive and complex theropod hand modifications really were,” explained Pittman.
“Vestigial structures, like legs in whales and snakes, may appear and disappear seemingly randomly in the course of evolution,” claims Jonah Choiniere of the American Museum of Natural History, who also worked on this important find.
With each new archaeological discovery, the world really seems to be getting smaller and smaller every day, no?
(Link)
By MDeeDubroff on 07-02-2011
