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Limusaurus

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Description

I haven't done much for a while, but how can I resist? This is the newly described Limusaurus inextricabilis from the Oxfordian of Western China. Very ornithomimid like isn't it? Well, it is actually a ceratosaur with some very unusual characteristics. This little (1.5-2 meters long) relative of the giant meat-eating Ceratosaurus was beaked and toothless! The presence of gastroliths in the stomach further confirm a vegetarian diet. That's not all: the tiny arms have hands with four fingers with a very reduced digit I. When (almost) everybody thought that the 3 digit hands of the advanced theropods as well as the wing of birds resulted from the disappearance of digits IV and V, this little critter tends to indicate otherwise: the three remaining digits are II-III-IV. This is indeed what developmental studies on bird embryos show.
Update: :iconmattmart: suggested a few changes for better accuracy.
Image size
7009x3740px 4.18 MB
Comments25
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Paleodinos59's avatar
Quel ordre de cet ornithomimidé? svp. Merci.