Decryption the mystery of “terrible hands” a dinosaur … – RTVE

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provided by Nature on Deinocheirus mirificus, with a hump on its back. EFE

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A team of Korean and American researchers has cracked the mystery of 50 years Dinosaur Deinocheirus mirificus , ‘terrible Hands’ , which so far only a copy, just convervaba the upper extremities, 2 knew 4 meters long, ending in a huge set of 20cm claws .

These traits did not think it could be a large predator, but the discovery of two more skeletons in Mongolia have allowed reconstructing the full aspect of this huge ostrich-like dinosaur, herbivore essentially but also eat small fish. The finding was published Thursday in the journal Nature .

The two new fossils partial skeletons of the mysterious dinosaur revealed that this giant theropod “almost as big as a Tyrannosaurus Rex “It was actually a ornithomimosaur, similar to modern ostriches , with a hump on its back. One of the specimens described had 11 meters long and weighed six tons .

Deinocheirus mirificus lived 70 million years ago in what is now Gobi Desert in Mongolia, then a marshland. It is believed that moved heavily and sipping small animals and plants with its great language, according to Europa Press. In one of the new fossils have been found scales and bones of small fish.

In the article, published in Nature , also detailed the “candle” bony in Part posterior spine is similar to its distant cousin the Spinosaurus . beak, without teeth, like ducks and its main feature is the “hooves” under their claws, which helped him not to sink into the muddy ground.

“For nearly 50 years Deinocheirus has been one of the most mysterious dinosaurs,” he noted lead author, geologist Korean Yuong-Nam Lee, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM).

It was first discovered in July 1965 in Mongolia. The fossil consisted only of some ribs and vertebrae and a huge set of claws. The little that had posed a odd mix of traits that defied categorization .

The huge size of this reptile generated much speculation for decades after the discovery of the first fossils, and you could try “the largest theropod ever found.”

Some compared with fossils of an Allosaurus (which looks like a small Tyrannosaurus rex) with long claws, while others said the animal could have used their forelimbs to hang huge giant trees like a giant sloth.

In 2009, a Korean-Mongolian team returned to the Mongolian quarry and was able to reconstruct almost the entire skeleton. These findings revealed that a dinosaur could try a vegetarian or mixed diet rather than a predator. However, to find the missing skull to answer many of those questions .

The American paleontologist Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland, said that fortunately the skull and feet one of these theropods were in a private collection and the Belgian paleontologist Pascal Godefroit convinced the owners to make them available to researchers, Efe reported.