Jan 25
Evolution does some weird, messed up stuff, man. Check out the Linhenykus monodactylus. It’s a therapod dinosaur–the same group that gave us such terrifying meat eaters as the Velociraptor and the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The majority of therapods had three fingers per hand. The T. Rex only had two, but still managed to make due. Old Linhenykus monodactylus, on the other, um, hand, looks a little less menacing, thanks to the odd single digit construction of its arms–the first dinosaur to be discovered with that unusual feature.
Linhenykus was discovered in northern China, a hotbed for fossil discovery. According to scientists, it likely dates back to around 80 million years ago. Early meat eating dinos actually had five fingers, shedding them over the intervening tens of millions of years. Linhenykus’s fingers, meanwhile, were likely used to help ferret our termites.
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