Nubbins: Single-Fingered Dino Discovered

Worst. HJ's. EVER.

Seen here looking suspiciously like a spraypainted ostrich, a new species of dinosaur has been discovered that only rocked a single digit on each arm nubbin. Actually, it looks like its fingers ARE its arms. They probably couldn't type for shit!

The earliest carnivorous dinosaurs had five fingers, although only four were actually functional. Many later meat-eaters had only three, and evolution left the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex with only two. Now researchers have unearthed the first known dinosaur with only one finger.

Linhenykus, which was probably about a meter tall, belongs to a family of dinosaurs called alvarezsauroids, which some researchers once thought were early flightless birds but which are now widely recognized as true dinosaurs. The team suggests that the single, clawlike digit was an adaptation for digging, perhaps for insects such as termites.

I'm not gonna lie, those nubbins look like the worst possible things to dig with that I've ever seen AND I ONCE TRIED DIGGING A HOLE TO CHINA WITH A PAPER PARTY HAT. Wound up in New Zealand, just sayin'.

ScienceShot: A Dino With Just One Finger [sciencemag]

Thanks to Shenanigans, who suspects Linhenykus actually had full arms and hands but all the other dinos considered them a delicacy. Okay now that I'll believe.

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