Scientists discover weird Mongolian dinosaur that wielded 'sharp, huge' claws
Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur in Mongolia's Gobi Desert.
Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Called Duonychus tsogtbaatari, the dinosaur has 2-foot-long clawed fingers on each hand, one fewer than its fellow Therizinosauria.
Duonychus, which means “two claws” in Greek, stood about 10 feet tall and weighed roughly 570 pounds and belonged to the group of dinosaurs called Therizinosaurs, which were characterized by an odd set of traits: huge claws believed to have been used to shear leaves off trees, leaf-shaped teeth, backward-facing hip bones and a long neck ending in a small head, and it was covered in down and quill-like feathers.
“It kind of blew my mind,” the lead author of a study published Tuesday in the journal iScience, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, an associate professor at the Hokkaido University Museum, told NBC News by email. “I felt this rush of excitement, like, ‘Wait… am I actually looking at something completely new here?’”
Therizinosaurs were already the “weirdest dinosaurs out there,” Kobayashi said. “Duonychus takes that weirdness and pushes it further. It’s like evolution said, ‘Let’s try something different,’ and just ran with it.”
Claws belonging to the Duonychus tsogtbaatari unearthed in Mongolia.Kobayashi et al / iScience via ReutersTherizinosaurs lived in Asia and North America during the Cretaceous Period, 145 million to 66 million years ago.
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