Deinocheiridae
Deinocheiridae is a family of ornithomimosaurian dinosaurs that lived across Asia and North America during the Cretaceous, roughly 115 to 69 million years ago. Alongside the more lightly built, cursorial ornithomimids, it represents one of the two main branches of the ornithomimosaurs, but its members tended to be large and robustly proportioned, retaining broader, less specialized feet rather than the tightly pinched running foot of their relatives. The group ranged from the comparatively primitive Beishanlong to the giant, deep-jawed Deinocheirus at its most derived, and also takes in the Mongolian Garudimimus and the Mexican Paraxenisaurus, with Harpymimus and Hexing sometimes assigned here as well. The once-separate family Garudimimidae is now treated as a junior synonym, since Deinocheiridae contains its type genus.
Diagnosis
- Radius and ulna well-separated along the shaft
- Flexor tubercle of the manual ungual positioned proximally
- Cnemial crest of the tibia projecting strongly anterodorsally
- Pes non-arctometatarsalian, with metatarsal III not pinched proximally
Genera placed directly in Deinocheiridae
- Deinocheirus Maastrichtian (72.2–66.0 Ma)Mongolia
- Garudimimus Turonian–Santonian (93.9–83.6 Ma)Mongolia
- Paraxenisaurus Campanian (83.6–72.2 Ma)Mexico
References
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Osmólska, H.; Roniewicz, E. (1970). Deinocheiridae, a new family of theropod dinosaurs. Palaeontologia Polonica 21: 5-19.
Erected the family Deinocheiridae for Deinocheirus mirificus.
osmólska1970a -
Lee, Y. N.; Barsbold, R.; Currie, P. J.; Kobayashi, Y.; Lee, H. J.; Godefroit, P.; Escuillié, F. O.; Chinzorig, T. (2014). Resolving the long-standing enigmas of a giant ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus mirificus. Nature 515(7526): 257-260. doi:10.1038/nature13874
Redescription of Deinocheirus that revalidated Deinocheiridae as a distinct ornithomimosaur family.
lee2014a