Latest news with #YoshitsuguKobayashi
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Ginormous Claws Found in The Gobi Desert Belong to a Never-Before-Seen Species
A newly discovered species of feathered, bipedal dinosaur with "exceptionally preserved and atypical hands" had just two fingers, each one tipped with a gigantic, claw-like talon. A remarkable fossil specimen found in southeastern Mongolia gave researchers a clear idea of what the claws would have looked like in real life, with their keratin sheath still clearly visible, extending the bones into wicked talons. In their published study, a team led by paleontologist Yoshitsugu Kobayashi from Hokkaido University in Japan analyzed the fossils' appearance, similarities to relatives, and geological context to determine where to place this dinosaur in our records. They've named it Duonychus tsogtbaatari, with a genus that means 'two claws' in Greek, and a species name honoring Mongolian paleontologist Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar. The fossil was dug out of a Cretaceous sedimentary deposit in the Gobi Desert by a team of researchers from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 2012. Known as the Bayanshiree Formation, this area is a hotspot for dinosaur fossils, thanks to its arid conditions and layers of lithified mud, clay, and sand. It's turned up giant footprints, plane-sized pterosaurs, and the famous 'fighting dinosaurs'. Uranium-lead dating of the mineral layers adjacent to the find suggests this newly discovered fossil could be around 90 to 95 million years old. Most of the bones are from its upper limbs and torso: There are some vertebrae, a bit of pelvis and ribs, part of one shoulder blade, and a whole lot of arm and hand bones. And, of course, a set of nails that would make Cardi B jealous. Duonychus's claws measure almost 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. It joins the therizinosaurs, a group of feathered, bipedal dinosaurs found in Cretaceous-era fossil deposits across Asia and North America. Until now, this clade was defined by its members' three-fingered hands, also studded with massive claws. "The discovery of Duonychus tsogtbaatari is a big deal because it's the first known therizinosaur with only two fingers," Kobayashi told James Woodford of New Scientist. "Most theropods, including other therizinosaurs, kept three functional fingers, so finding one that lost a digit is pretty unexpected." Among theropods, of which Tyrannosaurus is the most notable, only five are known to have reduced or totally absent third fingers, all independently of each other, and seemingly for totally different reasons. We won't know why Duonychus settled with two fingers rather than three without extra specimens or analysis, but the researchers think it may be related to its method of feeding. The menacing curves and 90-degree range of motion suggest the dinosaur grasped onto vegetation, like a sloth or chameleon. This may have helped Duonychus pull leafy food towards its mouth, in true therizinosaur fashion. "As herbivorous or omnivorous theropods with long necks and small leaf-shaped teeth, the evolution of their unusual hands likely played an important role in the feeding ecology of this clade," the authors write in a paper describing the find. "Although claws usually have a dominant function, likely for hook-and-pull foraging in most derived therizinosaurs, these structures could also have been utilized for other purposes, such as territoriality, defense, courtship, play, etc." The researchers say these are the largest three-dimensional dinosaur claws preserved with the sheath and underlying finger bone intact. "Keratin usually doesn't fossilize. It decays long before bones do," Kobayashi told Woodford. "Most of the time, when we find dinosaur claws, we're only looking at the bony core. But in life, the actual claw would have been covered in a thick keratin sheath, making it longer and more curved." The research was published in iScience. IUCN Sounds Alarm as 411 Fungi Species Face Extinction Mysterious Giants May Be a Whole New Kind of Life That No Longer Exists Venus Flytrap Wasp: 99-Million-Year-Old Amber Reveals Bizarre New Species
Asharq Al-Awsat
25-03-2025
- Science
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Weird Mongolian Dinosaur Wielded ‘Big, Sharp and Nasty' Claws
Fossils unearthed during construction of a water pipeline in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia have revealed one of the oddest members of a rather strange group of dinosaurs, a creature whose two-fingered hands sport a pair of menacing curved claws. The dinosaur, named Duonychus tsogtbaatari, measured about 10 feet (3 meters) long, weighed approximately 575 pounds (260 kg) and lived roughly 90 to 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, researchers said. Its claws measured about a foot (30 cm) long. Duonychus was a medium-sized member of a group of awkward-looking dinosaurs called therizinosaurs, which were known for having a rotund torso, long neck, small head, bipedal stance, feathers on the body and massive claws on the hands. While they were part of the dinosaur clade called theropods that included all the meat-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus, therizinosaurs preferred plants on their menu. Therizinosaurs, which inhabited Asia and North America, are distinguished by their large claws. Until now, every known therizinosaur had three clawed fingers. But Duonychus possessed one fewer, making it fitting that its name means "two claw." "Therizinosaurs are some of the weirdest dinosaurs ever. They were theropods - so, related to meat-eaters - but they looked like giant feathered sloths," said paleontologist Yoshitsugu Kobayashi of Hokkaido University Museum in Japan, lead author of the research published on Tuesday in the journal iScience. "Duonychus takes that weirdness even further. It had this short, two-fingered hand with claws like a raptor (swift meat-eating dinosaurs), but it used them to eat plants," Kobayashi said. The researchers said this Duonychus individual was not fully grown. It roamed a semi-arid environment with river channels alongside other therizinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, horned dinosaurs, duck-billed dinosaurs and a smaller forerunner of Tyrannosaurus called Alectrosaurus. While the skeleton recovered was incomplete - for instance, missing its skull and legs - the arms and hands were well-preserved. One of the claws retained its outer covering - a sheath of keratin, the same material as in our fingernails - rather than just the underlying bone. The keratin sheath added more than 40% to the claw's length. "These were big, sharp and nasty claws," said paleontologist and study co-author Darla Zelenitsky of the University of Calgary in Canada. "That's incredibly rare," Kobayashi said of the keratin fossilization, "and it gives us an extraordinary window into how these dinosaurs actually used their hands in life. The hands are beautifully preserved and show a ton of detail, including fused wrist bones, stiff joints and the two massive claws." The claws may have served multiple functions, though primarily used for grabbing and pulling down branches to feed on leaves. "They could have used the claws for other purposes as well, perhaps for grappling, defense, digging and maybe even recognizing one's own species - 'Hey, look at me. I also have only two fingers,'" Zelenitsky said. Duonychus is an example of digit reduction - losing fingers or toes through evolution. The first land vertebrates had eight digits. The earliest dinosaurs had hands with five fingers, just as people do, but many dinosaur lineages experienced digit reduction over time. The discovery of Duonychus means there are now no fewer than five lineages of theropods known to have independently evolved just two fingers on each hand. The most famous of these was T. rex, a member of the group called tyrannosaurs whose puny arms were way out of proportion with its enormous head and torso. So why would fewer fingers be beneficial? "With dinosaurs that grasped vegetation during foraging, one would think more fingers would be better. That was obviously not the case with Duonychus, as its hand construction with two fingers seemed to suit it just fine. I suspect it may have had a specialized feeding behavior or food source," Zelenitsky said. "Tyrannosaurs were hypercarnivorous beasts with massive skulls and jaws designed for seizing and killing prey," Zelenitsky added. "For them, the fingers and arms were probably reduced because they were pretty useless compared to their skull."
Reuters
25-03-2025
- Science
- Reuters
Weird Mongolian dinosaur wielded 'big, sharp and nasty' claws
March 25 (Reuters) - Fossils unearthed during construction of a water pipeline in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia have revealed one of the oddest members of a rather strange group of dinosaurs, a creature whose two-fingered hands sport a pair of menacing curved claws. The dinosaur, named Duonychus tsogtbaatari, measured about 10 feet (3 meters) long, weighed approximately 575 pounds (260 kg) and lived roughly 90 to 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, researchers said. Its claws measured about a foot (30 cm) long. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. Duonychus was a medium-sized member of a group of awkward-looking dinosaurs called therizinosaurs, which were known for having a rotund torso, long neck, small head, bipedal stance, feathers on the body and massive claws on the hands. While they were part of the dinosaur clade called theropods that included all the meat-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus, therizinosaurs preferred plants on their menu. Therizinosaurs, which inhabited Asia and North America, are distinguished by their large claws. Until now, every known therizinosaur had three clawed fingers. But Duonychus possessed one fewer, making it fitting that its name means "two claw." "Therizinosaurs are some of the weirdest dinosaurs ever. They were theropods - so, related to meat-eaters - but they looked like giant feathered sloths," said paleontologist Yoshitsugu Kobayashi of Hokkaido University Museum in Japan, lead author of the research published on Tuesday in the journal iScience, opens new tab. "Duonychus takes that weirdness even further. It had this short, two-fingered hand with claws like a raptor (swift meat-eating dinosaurs), but it used them to eat plants. It's like evolution said, 'Let's try something totally new.' And it worked," Kobayashi said. The researchers said this Duonychus individual was not fully grown. It roamed a semi-arid environment with river channels alongside other therizinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, horned dinosaurs, duck-billed dinosaurs and a smaller forerunner of Tyrannosaurus called Alectrosaurus. While the skeleton recovered was incomplete - for instance, missing its skull and legs - the arms and hands were well-preserved. One of the claws retained its outer covering - a sheath of keratin, the same material as in our fingernails - rather than just the underlying bone. The keratin sheath added more than 40% to the claw's length. "These were big, sharp and nasty claws," said paleontologist and study co-author Darla Zelenitsky of the University of Calgary in Canada. "That's incredibly rare," Kobayashi said of the keratin fossilization, "and it gives us an extraordinary window into how these dinosaurs actually used their hands in life. The hands are beautifully preserved and show a ton of detail, including fused wrist bones, stiff joints and the two massive claws." The claws may have served multiple functions, though primarily used for grabbing and pulling down branches to feed on leaves. "They could have used the claws for other purposes as well, perhaps for grappling, defense, digging and maybe even recognizing one's own species - 'Hey, look at me. I also have only two fingers,'" Zelenitsky said. Duonychus is an example of digit reduction - losing fingers or toes through evolution. The first land vertebrates had eight digits. The earliest dinosaurs had hands with five fingers, just as people do, but many dinosaur lineages experienced digit reduction over time. The discovery of Duonychus means there are now no fewer than five lineages of theropods known to have independently evolved just two fingers on each hand. The most famous of these was T. rex, a member of the group called tyrannosaurs whose puny arms were way out of proportion with its enormous head and torso. So why would fewer fingers be beneficial? "With dinosaurs that grasped vegetation during foraging, one would think more fingers would be better. That was obviously not the case with Duonychus, as its hand construction with two fingers seemed to suit it just fine. I suspect it may have had a specialized feeding behavior or food source," Zelenitsky said. "Tyrannosaurs were hypercarnivorous beasts with massive skulls and jaws designed for seizing and killing prey," Zelenitsky added. "For them, the fingers and arms were probably reduced because they were pretty useless compared to their skull."
National Geographic
25-03-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
This bizarre new dinosaur has something in common with modern sloths
Therizinosaurs were some of the strangest dinosaurs of all time. Descended from carnivores, the prehistoric reptiles were plant-eaters and had fuzzy feathered bodies, small heads with peg-like teeth in their jaws, bulbous stomachs that acted like fermenting vats for heaps of vegetation, and impressively large claws on each of their hands. Their build and claws have drawn comparisons to sloths, but some of these reptiles stood over 13 feet tall and weighed more than five tons. Now paleontologists have uncovered a therizinosaur that stands out even among its unusual relatives—because it's missing a finger. Described in the journal iScience today, the new dinosaur comes from rocks in Mongolia's Gobi Desert that are over 90 million years old. Back in 2012, paleontologists from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences initially unearthed parts of the spine, ribs, hips, and shoulders, and finally found two complete hands. They immediately recognized the fossils as those of a therizinosaur, but its status as a new dinosaur would take time to fully uncover. When Hokkaido University paleontologist and lead study author Yoshitsugu Kobayashi first saw the fossils the following year, he was immediately surprised that the dinosaur only had two fingers on each hand. Until the new find, all known therizinosaurs had three fingers with large claws at the end of each. 'Not only that, but one of the fingers had a preserved keratinous sheath and I was like 'Holy crap,' Kobayashi recalls.
Japan Times
16-02-2025
- Science
- Japan Times
Crowdfunding raises ¥8.3 million for dinosaur fossil excavations
A Japanese researcher has raised ¥8.38 million through a crowdfunding campaign for dinosaur fossil excavation surveys to be conducted mainly in the U.S. state of Alaska. The campaign, launched last December by Hokkaido University Museum professor Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, ended Friday, with funds raised exceeding both an initial ¥5 million goal but also surpassing a second goal of ¥8 million. Through the excavation surveys, Kobayashi aims find out how dinosaurs survived the winter in cold regions and how they traveled to and from Asia, which was not separated by an ocean at that time. Having accomplished his goal of raising ¥8 million, the professor will be able to expand his survey areas by traveling in small planes, while also taking undergraduate and graduate students on the surveys.
