An articulated pes from a small parvicursorine alvarezsauroid dinosaur from Inner Mongolia, China

A near complete and articulated parvicursorine pes from the Campanian Wulansuhai Formation is described. This pes is referred to the genus Linhenykus and is one of the first foot skeletons to be described for a derived alvarezsaur, providing new information on the first digit of the pes. The evolution of a laterally directed flange of the anterior face of the distal third metatarsal in arctometatarsalian taxa is described and discussed. This flange may have increased stability of the foot during cursorial locomotion and may also provide useful taxonomic and systematic data. Copyright © 2013 D.W.E. Hone et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.