[The title
was written by my editor.]
Researchers have found remains of perhaps the most unusual dinosaur
known, a sporadically feathered best with no teeth that may have resembled a
cross between Jar Jar Binks and Barney.
by John
Tyburski
Copyright © Daily
Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
Scientists
found the fossilized bones of two large, powerful forelimbs of an unknown
dinosaur in Mongolia some 50 years ago and concluded that the 8-foot-long
“arms” were from a fearsome creature because of the large, intimidating claws
at the ends of the digits. However, now that scientists have the rest of this
dinosaurs bones, the picture of the critter has been revised. It appears to
have been more awkward and hapless-looking than fearsome.
The
dinosaur in questions is Deinocheirus mirificus, which is Latin for “terrible
hands that look peculiar.” But this dinosaur probably lumbered about on its
hind legs, not unlike Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars fame, with a touch of Barney
the purple TV dinosaur mixed in. It measured 16 feet tall and 36 feet long,
weighed approximately seven tons, and had patches of feathers on certain parts
of its body but not all over. Round out the picture with a toothless duckbill
and a hump-like sail on its back, and Deinocheirus contends for the oddest
dinosaur found yet.
“Deinocheirus
turned out to be one the weirdest dinosaurs beyond our imagination,” study lead
author Yuong-Nam Lee, director of the Geological Museum in Daejeon, South
Korea, said in a written statement.
With only
the arms to go by, researchers imagined “a creature that would strike terror in
people,” explained University of Maryland dinosaur expert Thomas Holtz Jr, who
was not involved in the study. “Now it’s a creature that would strike
bemusement, amazement.”
Deinocheirus
likely ate aquatic plants like a giant vacuum cleaner with its beak and massive
tongue. The complete report
on this awkward-looking slow-mover was published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
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