Harpymimus
| Harpymimus | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Speculative life reconstruction of Harpymimus |
||||||||||||
| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Cretaceous (late Albian ) | ||||||||||||
| 107.5 to 100.5 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Harpymimus | ||||||||||||
| Barsbold & Perle, 1984 |
Harpymimus was a genus of dinosaurs from the group of ornithomimosauria within the Theropoda . She is one of the older and more primitive representatives of this group.
features
Harpymimus reached a length of around 3.5 meters. Its physique resembled that of the other ornithomimosaurs: they were slender, lightly built animals that moved biped (only on their hind legs). The hind limbs were significantly longer than the front limbs, the arms and hands were relatively large compared to those of other Theropoda, but delicately built. The relatively small head sat on a long neck. Harpymimus , however, still shows a number of primeval features: although the upper jaw was toothless, there were still small teeth in the front part of the lower jaw - the later ornithomimosauria were completely toothless. There were probably around 11 teeth per half of the jaw, but they are too badly damaged to be able to say more about their structure. There was probably a horned beak at the tip of the snout. Also in contrast to later ornithomimosaurs, the metacarpal bone of the thumb was even shorter than the other two and the humerus was relatively thick. The metatarsal bones show an approximately arctometatarsal state in which the middle of the three bones only tapered moderately upwards.
As with all ornithomimosaurs, the build of Harpymimus was geared towards running fast. What these animals ate is not known.
Discovery and naming
The fossil remains of Harpymimus were found in the Dund-Gobi-Aimag region of Mongolia and were first described in 1984. The name means "imitator of the harpy ", these are winged figures of Greek mythology. The type and only known species is Harpymimus okladnikovi . The finds are dated to the late Lower Cretaceous (late Albian ) to an age of about 107 to 100 million years.
Systematics
Harpymimus is classified in cladistic analyzes as a rather primitive representative of the ornithomimosauria. It is more highly developed than Pelecanimimus and Shenzhousaurus (both of which also had teeth, for example), but more basal than Garudimimus and the Ornithomimidae . Sometimes the genus is placed in its own monotypical family Harpymimidae.
literature
- Peter J. Makovicky , Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Philip J. Currie : Ornithomimosauria. In: David B. Weishampel , Peter Dodson , Halszka Osmólska (eds.): The Dinosauria . 2nd edition. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-520-24209-2 , pp. 137-150.
Individual evidence
- ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 111–112, online ( memento of the original of July 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
