‘Missing link’ from dinosaurs to birds uncovered in study

FOSSIL-HUNTERS may have found the definitive “missing link” between dinosaurs and birds, it was disclosed yesterday.

The creature is a small plant-eating dinosaur with a toothless beak, stunted arms, and unusual hands.

Limusaurus inextricabilis had key features that indicate a halfway point in the transition from dinosaurs to birds.

Dinosaurs technically vanished from the Earth 65 million years ago. But most experts believe they live on disguised as birds.

Two-legged theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, had bird-like feet, a bird-like pelvis, and a “wishbone” at the chest.

Like birds, they also had hollow bones that may have contained air sacs used in breathing. Some theropods are also believed to have sported feathers.

Protein recently discovered in dinosaur bones appears to be structurally similar to that of chickens.

However, the bird hand, now reduced and embedded in the wing, does not look as if it was derived from a theropod dinosaur hand.

Birds and theropods seem to have retained a different selection of fingers from a five-fingered ancestor. Scientists have believed that while theropods kept the first, second and third fingers, birds held onto the middle three fingers, the second, third and fourth digits.

If birds really descend from theropod dinosaurs, this should not be.

Limusaurus had hands different from those of any other theropod, which may provide a solution.

It had a shrunken first digit alongside more fully developed second, third and fourth fingers.

Scientists believe the dinosaur was evolving towards having three-fingered hands resembling those of birds.

Dr Xu Xing, from the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing, one of the experts whose description of Limusaurus appeared yesterday in the journal Nature, said: “This discovery is truly exciting, as it changes what we thought we knew about the dinosaur hand.”