Dinosaurs & Prehistory - Dinosaurs - Carnotaurus - Dinosaur anatomy - Cretaceous
How many fingers did Carnotaurus have on each severely shortened hand?
Correct!
Carnotaurus sastrei was a large predatory abelisaur from the Late Cretaceous of South America. In addition to his two horns above his eyes, his extremely small forelimbs were particularly noticeable. The Natural History Museum describes abelisaurs like Carnotaurus as having four fingers on each hand. The surprising thing is that the arms of Carnotaurus were proportionally even more reduced than the forearms of tyrannosaurs. Nevertheless, the upper arm bones and parts of the forearm were relatively strong. However, the four fingers were by no means four normal, functional grasping fingers. The hand was highly specialized and reduced. The fourth metacarpal bone in particular was cone-shaped and had no articular surface for other phalanges. It is not clear what practical use the tiny forelimbs ultimately had.
Despite its tiny forearms, Carnotaurus had four fingers on each hand. However, the hand bones were highly specialized and not comparable to a normal grasping hand.
