Big Discovery in Little China

Fossils of a 159 million year old limusaurs inextricabilis in China fills a missing gap between the evolution of dinosaurs and birds. The creature was from the theropod herbivore family, one of the dinosaurs found to suggest a previous connection of Asia to other continents such as Africa, supporting the Pangaea theory.

The remains contained a toothless and pointed jawbone (in otherwords a beak).  It also appeared to have short, stumpy arms without claws, supporting the fact that it was an herbivore, and also revealing evidence of what could have been the early stages of pre-evolutionary wings.

The most concrete find was the reduction in size of the first and fourth fingers on the hands, and enlargement of the second, indicating the introduction of bird-like claws. It appears this particular theropod was starting to lose its outer fingers, as fossils of birds from the prehistoric periods have shown. The program director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences states, “this work on dinosaurs provides a whole new perspective on the evolution of bird manual digits.”

Image: "Is it a bird? A plane? No, it's a dinosaur" by LostInInaka on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing.