Today, the science captain wants to introduce a dinosaur that Xu Xing has studied, a very interesting little guy. This time, we're going back to the Cretaceous era, about 70,000 to 80,000 years ago, when the linhe region of Inner Mongolia today was still an open desert.
Image credit: Julius T. Csotonyi, CC BY 2.0
The forelimbs of the river-clawed dragon were very short! If you look closely at its short forelimbs, you will find that there is only one finger and one claw on it.
Image credit: NobuTamura – palaeocritti, CC BY-SA 3.0
This is quite rare in dinosaurs. Early carnivorous dinosaurs had 4 fingers on their forelimbs, even if the Tyrannosaurus rex had very weak forelimbs, there were two fingers! The forelimbs of this little dinosaur are only a short finger, which is obviously more degenerate. Its forelimbs look like decorations and seem to be completely ineffective.
图片来源：Xing Xu, Paul Upchurch, Qingyu Ma, Michael Pittman, Jonah Choiniere, Corwin Sullivan, David W.E. Hone, Qingwei Tan, Lin Tan, Dong Xiao, and Fenglu Han, CC BY 2.0
The River-clawed Dragon had a long, sticky tongue in its mouth that could be spat out quickly and retracted to prey on ants.
A skeleton model of Avara Cilong.
Image credit: FunkMonk, CC BY 3.0
River-clawed dragons belong to the family Avarae.
A restoration of a single-clawed dragon.
Image credit: ArthurWeasley – Wikimedia commons, CC BY 2.5
Imaginary image of a bird-faced dragon.
Image credit: FunkMonk, CC BY-SA 3.0
Many species of dinosaurs in the family Avala were as highly degenerate as those of river-clawed dinosaurs, with only one finger.
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