<p class="title">Two newly discovered dinosaurs may be missing links in an unusual lineage of predators that lived between 160 million and 90 million years ago, a study suggests.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The two species, Xiyunykus and Bannykus, were theropods -- a group of bipedal, largely carnivorous dinosaurs, said researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Some theropods eventually gave rise to birds, while another branch, the alvarezsauroids, evolved into strange-looking insectivores with short arms and hands with an enlarged finger for digging into nests.</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, until now, little was understood about how this change happened because of the 70-million-year evolutionary gap separating the insect-eating alvarezsauroids from the earliest known member of the group, Haplocheirus.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The significance of Xiyunykus and Bannykus is that they fall within that gap and shed light on patterns of evolution within Alvarezsauroidea," said Corwin Sullivan, a paleontologist at the University of Alberta.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"These specimens greatly improve the scientific community's understanding of the early stages of alvarezsauroid evolution and give us a better idea of what early alvarezsauroids were like," Sullivan said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The new specimens reveal clues about how the creatures' diet shifted from meat to insects, Sullivan noted.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The forelimbs show some adaptations for digging, which would later become more exaggerated, and some features of their skulls also resemble those of insectivorous alvarezsauroids.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The hindlimbs are less modified, suggesting the arms and head of alvarezsauroids underwent significant change before the legs did," said Sullivan.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Xiyunykus and Bannykus are currently represented by one incomplete specimen apiece. Those specimens provide a good deal of intriguing information, but we'll need many more fossils before we can be confident that we have a clear understanding of how alvarezsauroids, to put it bluntly, got so weird," Sullivan said. PTI SAR SAR</p>
<p class="title">Two newly discovered dinosaurs may be missing links in an unusual lineage of predators that lived between 160 million and 90 million years ago, a study suggests.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The two species, Xiyunykus and Bannykus, were theropods -- a group of bipedal, largely carnivorous dinosaurs, said researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Some theropods eventually gave rise to birds, while another branch, the alvarezsauroids, evolved into strange-looking insectivores with short arms and hands with an enlarged finger for digging into nests.</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, until now, little was understood about how this change happened because of the 70-million-year evolutionary gap separating the insect-eating alvarezsauroids from the earliest known member of the group, Haplocheirus.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The significance of Xiyunykus and Bannykus is that they fall within that gap and shed light on patterns of evolution within Alvarezsauroidea," said Corwin Sullivan, a paleontologist at the University of Alberta.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"These specimens greatly improve the scientific community's understanding of the early stages of alvarezsauroid evolution and give us a better idea of what early alvarezsauroids were like," Sullivan said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The new specimens reveal clues about how the creatures' diet shifted from meat to insects, Sullivan noted.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The forelimbs show some adaptations for digging, which would later become more exaggerated, and some features of their skulls also resemble those of insectivorous alvarezsauroids.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The hindlimbs are less modified, suggesting the arms and head of alvarezsauroids underwent significant change before the legs did," said Sullivan.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Xiyunykus and Bannykus are currently represented by one incomplete specimen apiece. Those specimens provide a good deal of intriguing information, but we'll need many more fossils before we can be confident that we have a clear understanding of how alvarezsauroids, to put it bluntly, got so weird," Sullivan said. PTI SAR SAR</p>