The largest complete dinosaur claw found in the Gobi desert –

The largest fully preserved dinosaur claws have been discovered during the construction of a water pipe in the Gobi Desert in southeastern Mongolia. Named Duonychus Tsogtbaatari, the previously unknown Cretaceous dinosaurs have double-digit hands, nearly a foot long deadly curved claws. The newly discovered fossil preserves two claws of both hands, as well as the keratin sheath of one of the numbers. Keratin sheath increases the length of the claw by more than 40%.

“Keratin does not usually fossilize. It decays long before the bone.” [Hokkaido University paleontology professor Yoshitsugu] Kobayashi. “Most of the time when we find dinosaur claws, we’re just looking at the bone core. But in life, the actual claws are covered with thick keratin sheaths, making it longer and more curved.”

The incredibly rare keratin sheath provides paleontologists with new insights on how these dinosaurs use their hands in life, and the rest are excellent, including fused wrist bones and stiff joints.

Paleontologists from the Mongolian Institute of Paleontology have also discovered fossil remains of dinosaurs’ backbone, tailbone, ribs and hips. The skull and legs are missing, but depending on the size of the body remains, the dinosaurs are 10 feet long and weigh 575 pounds. It’s not completely grown up.

Duonychus is a member of the Therizinosaur clade of the herbivorous theors that lived in Asia and North America during the Cretaceous period (900,000-950,000 years ago). All members of the group have great claws, but Duonychus is the only claw with two numbers. All other known Therizinosaurs have three.

Darla Zelenitsky, a team member at the University of Calgary in Canada, said it was amazing to find a two-finger Therizinosaur: “We’re like, wow, that’s really weird for one of these dinosaurs.”

“This is the largest preserved 3D dinosaur claw found so far,” she said. “This claw cannot be preserved as a contour on the rock around the bone, which is very typical for fossils that retain the real claw. The claw is actually three-dimensional and forms sheaths around the finger bones below, similar to what we see in the claws of dogs and cats.”

These two fingers are an adaptation, Dunicus is more flexible and powerful when grasping and pulling down the vegetation. The curvature of the claws and the large buckling of the sheath make hook branches easier, while the two numbers have greater size and strength rather than three, making it possible for dinosaurs to target thicker branches. The third finger might even be their disadvantage, just hindering them and hindering the tightness and accuracy of the two-finger handle.

These findings have been published in journals Iscience You can read it here.