September
3, 2018 by Katie Willis, University
of Alberta
Two newly
discovered dinosaurs may be missing links in an unusual lineage of predators
that lived between 160 million and 90 million years ago, new research suggests.
The two
species, Xiyunykus and Bannykus, were theropods—a group of bipedal,
largely carnivorous dinosaurs.
Some theropods eventually gave rise to birds, while another branch, the
alvarezsauroids, evolved into strange-looking insectivores with short arms and
hands with an enlarged finger for digging into nests.
But until
now, little was understood about how this change happened because of the
70-million-year evolutionary gap separating the insect-eating alvarezsauroids
from the earliest known member of the group, Haplocheirus.
"The
significance of Xiyunykus and Bannykus is that they fall within that gap and
shed light on patterns of evolution within Alvarezsauroidea," explained
Corwin Sullivan, a University of Alberta paleontologist who participated in the
international study.
"These
specimens greatly improve the scientific community's understanding of the early
stages of alvarezsauroid evolution and give us a better idea of what early
alvarezsauroids were like."
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