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Here’s a look at what Oksoko’s avarsan dinosaurs looked like in the past.
Michael W. Skrepnick
Newly discovered fossils of a toothless, parrot-like species of dinosaur that lived more than 68 million years ago show a creature with just two fingers on each forearm. That’s one digit less than what their close dinosaur relatives had.
The fossils imply that dinosaurs may have developed forelimb adaptations that allowed them to spread during the Upper Cretaceous Period, researchers say in a new study published Wednesday in The Royal Society Open Science journal. Paleontologists from the University of Edinburgh found several complete skeletons of the new species during an excavation in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.
The omnivore and feathered Oksoko avarsan grew to around 6.5 feet (2 meters) long. In addition to two functional digits on each forearm, the dinosaurs appeared to have large, toothless beaks, much like today’s parrots.
“His two-fingered hand led us to observe the way the hand and forelimb changed throughout oviraptor evolution, which had not been studied before,” said the University of Edinburgh professor and co-author of the Gregory Funston study in a statement. “This revealed some unexpected trends that are a key piece in the puzzle of why oviraptors were so diverse before the extinction that killed the dinosaurs.”
The fossil of the two-fingered hand of an Oksoko avarsan.
Gregory funston
The arms and hands of the dinosaurs changed dramatically during slow migrations to new geographic areas in the Gobi Desert and North America.
The preserved fossil remains of three dinosaurs resting together.
Gregory funston
Newly discovered fossils of four young avarsan Oksoko dinosaurs show them resting together, which scientists believe may be further proof that dinosaurs were social when they were young.
“Oksoko avarsan is interesting because the skeletons are very complete and the way they were preserved resting together shows that the juveniles roamed together in groups,” Funston said.
Researchers from the University of Alberta and the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Canada, the University of Hokkaido in Japan, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences also contributed to the study.
