From the depths of time, from the Hell Creek Formation, the last of the hook-handed dinosaurs emerged: Captain Hook … from the Prairie.
This fearsome creature had a snout full of teeth and large, viciously hooked claws. But each claw sat at the end of the most ridiculously short, stubby one-fingered hand.
Despite all its sharp fragments and absurd limbs, Trierarchuncus prairiensis In fact, it may have been pretty cute, if you can believe the researchers’ impressions of what it might have been like, thanks to its primitive feather fluff and long tail.
It was only about three meters long, tiny compared to many of the other giant beasts that have been discovered in the Hell Creek rock formation, including many Tyrant saurian Rex and Triceratops.
Daily Sketch: Trierarchuncus prairiensis Fowler 2020, newly described Late Cretaceous #alvarezsaurid, here doing a silly show dance. #sciart #paleoart #dinosaurio pic.twitter.com/gt8yZ6WIsW
– Filipe Martinho (@martinhfilipe) July 13, 2020
T. prairiensis Simple little teeth suggest seas of grass once stalked alongside these larger beasts, in what is now Montana, USA, in search of precious tasty insect treasures to gobble up, during the late Cretaceous period 66 years ago. millions of years.
The group Alvarezsauria previously only isolated fragments and fossils found in Asia and South America were known. Paleontologists have published a new article about their discovery of a series of claws belonging to this newly named species.
Its name is made up of ‘trierarch’, the captain of a seafaring ship in Greek, and ‘uncus’ which means hook in Latin, which is translated as ‘Captain Hook of the Prairie’.
The hooked claws of the fluffy dinosaur are believed to have been ripping apart vegetation, insect nests, and rotting wood, rather like anteater claws.
(Boban Filipovic)
The paleontologist Denver Fowler of the Badlands Dinosaur Museum and his colleagues found the fossils in the highest layer of the Hell Creek Formation, making them the youngest known Alvarezsaurid dinosaurs and among the last known non-avian dinosaurs to exist before the infamous mass extinction event. that erased them outside.
They are members of a group of dinosaurs called maniraptorans, which also includes dinosaurs that evolved into birds.
The claw fossil series of the forelimbs does not belong to an individual, because these ancient and strange creatures only had one finger, a thumb attached to small but powerful arms.
The three claws show changes in shape and texture as the animal grows in size. (Fowler et al, Cretaceous Research, 2020)
“The new fossils represent a series of growth from juveniles to adults,” the researchers explain in a press release.
“The fossils show that as Trierarchuncus grew, the claw in his hand became more robust; the grooves of the blood vessels on the sides of the claw became more deeply embedded in the bone; and the surface of the claw developed from be smooth in young individuals, to a rough surface texture in adults. “
These changes are significant because researchers have used such characteristics to classify the different species of alvarezsaurids. Some previous findings in this group may have been classified according to their juvenile forms, which could make their classification inaccurate.
“Dinosaurs changed significantly through development,” the researchers explain in their article. “Young individuals may appear morphologically more similar to their ancestors than to adults of their own species.”
An important point for paleontologists to keep in mind when classifying which fossil belongs to which species.
This research was published in Cretaceous research.
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