The tree-dwelling dinosaur Dixon dubbed the “Nauger” was unlike any known dinosaur. Part woodpecker and part aye-aye, this dinosaur pecked holes in trees in order to snatch grubs with a specialized, elongated finger, but in 2002 two different teams of paleontologists described two specimens of a strikingly similar dinosaur. Known as Scansoriopteryx, this tiny dinosaur possessed a ludicrously elongated third finger, and a paper by a team of Chinese Academy of Sciences paleontologists led by Fucheng Zhang suggested that this dinosaur may have been using this digit to skewer insect larvae much like the aye-aye and Dixon’s hypothetical “Nauger.” These scientists also proposed that Scansoriopteryx may have been one of the few arboreal dinosaurs, although the paleobiology of this creature has not been thoroughly studied yet (via “Alternative Evolution” of Dinosaurs Foresaw Contemporary Paleo Finds [Slide Show]: Scientific American Slideshows http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=alternative-evolution-dinosaurs-foresaw-contemporary-paleo)

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