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Dinosaur with Super Strong Hands Found in Arizona

A dinosaur recently unearthed in Arizona possessed incredibly strong hands, according to a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The new dinosaur, named Sarahsaurus aurifontanalis (after the philanthropist Sarah Butler), was a sauropodomorph, a small but closely related ancestor to sauropods, the largest land animals in history. Its hands were probably more powerful and dexterous than those for any other known sauropodorph, paleontologists believe.

It remains a mystery as to why the hands of Sarahsaurus were relatively tiny and yet so strong.

What is known is that Sarahsaurus lived about 190 million years ago during the Early Jurassic Period. The dino was 14 feet long and weighed about 250 pounds. It possessed physical traits usually associated with gigantic animals. For example, its thigh bones were long and straight like pillars, yet were not much larger than a human's thigh bones. Sarahsaurus shows that sauropodmorphs started out small and later evolved to a very large size....

Read entire article at Discovery News