Harpymimus

Speculative reconstruction of live Harpymimus

• Mongolia

Harpymimus was a genus of dinosaur from the group of Ornithomimosauria within the Theropoda. It is one of the older and urtümlicheren representatives of this group.

Features

Harpymimus reached a length of about 3.5 meters. His physique resembled that of the other Ornithomimosauria: it were slender, lightly built animals that continued moving biped (only on the hind legs ). The hind limbs were significantly longer than the front legs, arms and hands were built compared with those of other theropods relatively large, but delicate. The relatively small head perched on a long neck. Harpymimus however, still shows a number of primitive features: Although the upper jaw was toothless in the front part of the mandible and teeth were still small - the later Ornithomimosauria were completely toothless. Per half of the jaw around 11 teeth were probably present, however, they are too badly damaged to be able to tell more details about its construction can. Presumably there was a horned beak to the tip of the snout. Also in contrast to later Ornithomimosauriern the metacarpals of the thumb was still shorter than the other two and the humerus bone was relatively thick. The metatarsal not show the arctometatarsale position, ie that the three bones still largely ran side by side.

The Body of Harpymimus was aligned as with all Ornithomimosauria on a fast running. What do these animals ate, is not known.

Discovery and designation

The fossil remains of Harpymimus were found in the region Dand Gobi Aimag in Mongolia and in 1984 first described. The name means " imitators of the Harpy ", which are winged figures of Greek mythology. Type species and only known species is Harpymimus okladnikovi. The finds are (late Albian ) dated to the late Cretaceous to an age of about 107 to 100 million years.

System

Harpymimus is classified in cladistic analyzes as more primitive representatives of Ornithomimosauria. It is more sophisticated than Pelecanimimus and Shenzhousaurus (the two, for example, also had more teeth), but basal as Garudimimus and Ornithomimidae. Sometimes the genre in its own monotypic family Harpymimidae is provided.