Deinocheirus Mystery, How was it solved in Detail?

[Tylosaurus]

Hi all


After I read about Deinocheirus for the first time in 1986 I believe it was Well I was like okay they found it's forelimbs in such great quality and a few ribs but the rest was never found, like no skull, no tail, no rear limbs, no hips, you name it!  Nothing but just them forelimbs and that was it, even with various finds the same result, I still wonder what explained that though.

So I'd even that wonder how the Deincheirus mystery was solved, I just can not understand how Science in many ways was able to solve this in precise details.
As in extra details --> how?

The Deinocheirus Mystery was in my records one of the most complicated ones to solve heh, all they found were these two massive arms:


Which lead to this replica with all the parts intact:


Those arms lead me to two unexplained questions:

1.) Were the Finders hiding some important information from us that we were not aloud to know of?
2.) If these Arms were found on various locations, why is it that each find was similar to the others as only the forelimbs and nothing else?

Anyhow, even in 1995 which was the last time I was doing my Dino hobby this intensive, I still was not able to find more about Deinocheirus. So hereby I guessed it was never going to be found in the end, just a few arms and that was it.

But now I saw a Deinocheirus from CollectA which I do intend on buying soon as it releases; which is this fella:

That is just to give me some sort of a solution to this long awaited Mystery, but still I'd like to know , were there other body parts found to determine it's finale shape or was this more like a guess?

If it's a guess then we are still not really sure on how Deinocheirus may have looked like, I always saw it as an overgrown Deinonychus, but it seemed that that wasn't the case

[Gwangi]

No new material was found that I'm aware of but aside from the arms Deinocheirus is known from other material as well, just some ribs and vertebra I think. The reason we have a good guess as to what Deinocheirus was is through comparative anatomy, it's arms match those of smaller Ornithomimosaurs such as Gallamimus and Struthiomimus so in all likelihood it looked similar.

For comparison sake take a look at this Struthiomimus hand.



Here is another. Note how similar the Deinocheirus arm is to Ornithomimus.

[Tylosaurus]

Hmm yes true there are very good similarities, but then it's still a rough guess to finalize it's looks I'm like.

It's that I find it very odd that no other main body parts were found of these Deinocheurusses, even that multiple specimens were found in different locations, even that the similarities are so close to each other, somehow we are missing out on something.
It might be a good guess though, but on the other side Deinocheirus still remains much of a mystery due to no proven finds that show it how it was like this when it lived

Anyways we always have that sign of hope that more will be found of Deinocheirus

[Gwangi]

Well, so much in paleontology is basically a best guess. Even the dinosaurs we know best we barely know at all and a lot of well known dinosaurs are known from only a specimen or two and scant remains. Spinosaurus is a classic example of this, we don't have much of it but because we have related animals we can make a best guess as to how it looked and behaved. It is kind of frustrating on one hand that we'll never know much about these animals but that is part of the excitement as well, who knows what could be found next! Perhaps a Deinocheirus specimen will turn up tomorrow or maybe 10 years from now, the hunt continues.

[Tylosaurus]

Spinosaurus is indeed a good example, in the 80's it was though it had a different skull more like that of Megalosaurus , but some good 10 years later they found out that it was given the incorrect skull, the skull it has now is a lot like that of Suchomimus & Baryonyx

That was another weird thing finding out, even that one of my JP Spino's has the old head, which kinda makes it look more like a Megalosaur with a huge sail on it's back, than some fish eater.
Here's the one I have:


That is how I knew Spinosaurus and not with that JP3 Style fish eater head it has these days! heh! I thought that was just because of JP3, to give it more impressive looks, never knew that the fish eater head was for real 
But yeah I'd be very anxious if there will be more breakthrough finds for a more complete variant of Deinocheirus, that would be the biggest news I could wait for as Mysterious Dino's go 

[DinoLord]

I remember hearing rumors of new material that would solve the mystery several years back, but they never amounted to anything major.

[Tylosaurus]

Would be interesting to know exactly what that new material contained as info goes, even the smallest bits of  evidential data can help us understand the looks of these strange creatures.

[DinoFan45]

I am with you tylosaurus, on this. I have personally wanted to find out as much as I could about it, and came up pretty short. My personal, probably out of whack, theory, is that Deinocherius was actually a gigantic primitive therizinosaur. With arms really similar to ornithomimids, it could be possible. But it's only a half crazed dream of mine.

[Horridus]

That is how I knew Spinosaurus and not with that JP3 Style fish eater head it has these days! heh! I thought that was just because of JP3, to give it more impressive looks, never knew that the fish eater head was for real 

The JP Spino's head was still quite far removed from reality, though - it's too wide and generally robust and its teeth are too curved. It also has two crests in front of its eyes, allosaur-style, instead of just one on the midline. Just compare the Papo and Carnegie Spinosaurus models (the new one in the latter case, obviously).

[Tylosaurus]

Yeah I seen those, the Carnegie looks more realistic as details go, the Papo variant is more based on the JP films indeed, that ios something I saw in all of Papo's models
They all look more robustly built, as body figure goes

In the days I knew Spinosaurus it was a Megalosaur, like a large Megalosaurus with a huge Sail on it's back, very similar to what Ouranosaurus, Dimetrodon & Edaphosaurs have on their backs, which probably served for a similar way, for body climate control and to impress females during the mating seasons.

Is the Spinosaurus still a Megalosaur and what could the Sail else be used for?
I suppose we can only speculate such things, but it's still avery interesting concept to discuss

I am with you tylosaurus, on this. I have personally wanted to find out as much as I could about it, and came up pretty short. My personal, probably out of whack, theory, is that Deinocherius was actually a gigantic primitive therizinosaur. With arms really similar to ornithomimids, it could be possible. But it's only a half crazed dream of mine.

Yeah maybe, they do look alike as the style of arms they crave. I always saw Deinocheirus as an oversized Deinonychus rofl, that it was bigger than a T-Rex or anything else that was uber compared to that of a T-rex or anything similar.
Just in a way that it was everyone's worst nightmare on legs xD 
Yet I still wish this, even if they would try and make peace with it by waving a white flag Please I surrender!
Not like that would make sense, just the idea it's self xD  

[DinoFan45]

Yeah, it's one of my crackpot theories, which are generally few, far in between, and need more facts.

[Tylosaurus]

One they should pop up I'm like, every yeah new fragments for such clues are found, I think that Antarctica has a lot to hide as well and maybe the answers we seek are there as well.

[Dinoguy2]

I remember hearing rumors of new material that would solve the mystery several years back, but they never amounted to anything major.

Well, not yet... The news a few years back was that they had found one or two new skeletons. But from the time of finding the bones in the ground, to funding an expedition to get them out over one or more digging seasons, to the years it takes to prepare them, to the time it takes to study them, describe them, get the paper published, etc can take decades in some cases. Wait a few years and you'll see a more complete Deinocheirus skeleton.

[Tylosaurus]

Hmm maybe, maybe not, it's all a matter of waiting on what will be found next; or say if more will be found, as this matter goes

[Sumo]

Spinosaurus is indeed a good example, in the 80's it was though it had a different skull more like that of Megalosaurus , but some good 10 years later they found out that it was given the incorrect skull, the skull it has now is a lot like that of Suchomimus & Baryonyx

Megalosaurus has a skull? 

[Dinoguy2]

Hmm maybe, maybe not, it's all a matter of waiting on what will be found next; or say if more will be found, as this matter goes

Well, more most certainly was found. One of the paleontologists on the dig talked about it on his blog. So it's just a matter of time until we hear more details. When, not if.

[Horridus]

Megalosaurus has a skull? 

Not a complete one, but bits of one.

[Tylosaurus]

every animal has and had a skull, even if only bits were found, that it enough proof that point A the animal had a head and point B it existed

[Horridus]

every animal has and had a skull, even if only bits were found, that it enough proof that point A the animal had a head and point B it existed

...That being the case (although not for EVERY animal, but I know what you mean), I assumed that the question was about whether or not a Megalosaurus skull had been found. But given the winky face...maybe not.

[Sumo]

No, obviously Megalosaurus was just a partial mandible and pelvis strolling around the jurassic landscape, just as Deinocheirus was a disembodied pair of arms floating around. 
Nah, I was being facetious... Would love it if a complete Megalosaurus skull eventually turned up, but I think that particular genus is a lost cause. Even if a complete skeleton perfectly matching the existing remains was discovered, odds are it would end up being assigned another name simply because the Megalosaurus type specimen is too incomplete for any conclusive matching.