Newly discovered fossils of a toothless, parrot-like species of dinosaur that lived more than 68 million years ago show a creature with only two fingers on each forearm. That is one digit less than the close dinosaur relatives.
The fossils suggest the dinosaurs may have developed adaptations on their forelegs that allowed them to spread during the Late Cretaceous Period, researchers say in a new study published Wednesday in the Royal Society's Open Science Journal. Paleontologists from the University of Edinburgh found a number of complete skeletons of the new species during an excavation in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.
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The feathery, omnivorous oksoko avarsan was about 2 meters long. In addition to two functional digits on each forearm, the dinosaurs appeared to have large, toothless beaks, much like modern parrots.
"His two-fingered hand prompted us to study how the hand and foreleg changed as the oviraptors evolved - something that had not been studied before," said Gregory Funston, professor and co-author at the University of Edinburgh, 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 dinosaurs' arms and hands changed dramatically during slow migrations to new geographic areas in the Gobi Desert and North America.
The newly discovered fossils of four young Oksoko Avarsan dinosaurs show how they rest together, which scientists believe could be further evidence that the dinosaurs were social as adolescents.
"Oksoko Avarsan is interesting because the skeletons are very complete and the way they rest together shows that teenagers roamed together in groups," said Funston.
Researchers from the University of Alberta and the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Canada, Hokkaido University in Japan, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences also contributed to the study.
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