In 1965 , paleontologists excavate a sick couplet of eight - understructure , hook - tip dinosaur arms – and picayune else . Since then , researchers have been search for the sleep ofDeinocheirus mirificus ( Latin for “ strange , frightful hands ” ) . Now , a team working in Mongolia has found it .
In the latest issue ofNature , a squad pass byYuong - Nam Lee , director of the Geological Museum in Daejeon , South Korea , trace the two nearly - complete specimens of a dinosaur whose munition have puzzled paleontologists for nigh fifty year . [ Photo Credit : Eduard SolàviaWikimedia Commons ]
Some had hypothesized that Deinocheirus used its arms to trammel live fair game , but venter contents recovered by Lee and his colleague advise this dinosaur ate flora and Pisces the Fishes . In their publication , the team pegs Deinocheirus as the largest - known member of the ornithomimosaurs , a grouping of “ Struthio camelus - like ” theropods that let in such dinosaur as Gallimimus , of they’re - flocking - this - way fame :
But while fossilist believe most ornithomimosuars to have been swift , svelte , and agile likeGallimimus , they use very different words to discover Deinocheirus .
“ Deinocheirus was much weirder than anyone could have imagined,”University of Edinburgh paleontologistStephen Brusattetold National Geographic ’s Ed Yong , “ a colossal , slow - moving , cavalry - headed , gibbousness - back dinosaur that looks like something out of a bad sci - fi movie . ”
Someone more considerate ofDeinocheirus ’ feeling might draw the dinosaur by the numbers . At thirty - six foot foresightful and twelve - thousand Cypriot pound , Deinocheirus was certainly quite large , and its comparatively stubby legs would propose it remove its time have around . Along its back ran a prominent sail . Its face was elongate , and tapered to a toothless , duck - alike beak :
Lee ’s squad suspects thatDeinocheirus ’ large , hoofed human foot would have celebrate it from sinking into its boggy habitat , where it would have plodded , according to brash experts,“goofily,”from station to place . As paleontologist and evolutionary biomechanistJohn Hutchinsontold the BBC , “ multitude were really wondering what the rest of this animal looked like … Now we know , and it ’s just so freaking weird – we never would have have a bun in the oven this animal to look so bizarre . ”
register the full scientific study in the latest issue ofNature .
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