Small, Stubby-Armed Dinosaurs Have Confounded Paleontolog...

What’s Happening

Okay so Recent discoveries about an alvarezsaur called Manipulonyx have drawn renewed attention to this group of bird-like, clawed creatures and the mysteries around their anatomy and behavior Small, Stubby-Armed Dinosaurs Have Confounded Paleontologists.

Are Answers Finally Within Reach? The small dinosaur Patagonykus one of an odd-looking group called alvarezsaurs puzzled the experts with its stout claws and bird-like bones. (and honestly, same)

Kabacchi via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.

The Details

0 Tyrannosaurs catch a lot of teasing for their tiny arms. The fiddly, two-clawed appendages just look a little silly on carnivores of such imposing stature.

But they were hardly alone—another enigmatic dinosaur family had comparably small forelimbs. Called alvarezsaurs, many of these mysterious creatures had such unusual arms that paleontologists are still puzzling over how their ridiculously stubby, big-clawed limbs evolved.

Why This Matters

A new description of an especially odd alvarezsaur encapsulates that mystery. Late last year, scientists at long last studied and described the partial skeleton of the small dinosaur, which paleontologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences had excavated from the Gobi Desert in 1979. Named Manipulonyx , the Cretaceous animal possessed some of the strangest hands ever recorded among the “ trash lizards .

Scientists and researchers are watching this development closely.

Key Takeaways

• ” On its hand is a large, single claw, flanked fingers and a thumb-like spur.
• The bizarre nature of the hand and claws highlights an enduring puzzle about why such odd traits evolved.

The Bottom Line

The bizarre nature of the hand and claws highlights an enduring puzzle about why such odd traits evolved. While alvarezsaurs have been interpreted as ant-eaters before, the authors of the new study propose that Manipulonyx was an egg thief that pilfered nests and clutched the stolen eggs close to its body as it ran away.

What’s your take on this whole situation?