Deinocheirus skull

[Funk]

Heh, I actually did look at that, but didn't want to go way overboard. We don't know how much of the shape is just distortion, for example... The annoying thing is, it will probably be many years before anything is properly published on this... But hopefully good images and skeletal restorations will be released before, as was the case with Anzu...

[Yutyrannus]

There is a skeletal already, it just doesn't show the head.

[Funk]

Well, we only have a photo where the skeletal can be seen in a weird perspective in very low res so far, let's hope the actual drawing will be uploaded somewhere soon...

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I would be interested to learn how they are connecting this skull to the species for certain. I have not seen anything to prove that this particular skull is in fact the skull that was lost originally, and even if so, since it was removed with no study being made or identification if it could possibly be something found in the same general bone bed but not necessarily related to the dinosaur in question. I hope they can nail that down solidly before we create another Brontosaurus.

[Funk]

Since it's a pretty complete skull, they should be able to classify it to the family level. And if  they find the giant skull to be ornithomimid, and if it was found next to a giant ornithomimid skeleton, well, it would be the most parsimonious idea, no?

[amargasaurus cazaui]

But...have they said where it was found or why they are connecting it to this animal? That is the very same logic that led to brontosaurus actually.....what is the providence of the skull?

[Funk]

I read about the existence of this skull (no photos) some months back when the humpback was announced, I think there was some info there. But we'll just have to wait and see...

Or maybe that's wishful thinking, I found the article again:

There's even a chance some critical fossils have already been found. "We still have no skull material," Brusatte says, "although there are rumors of a skull being privately collected, looted from Mongolia, and sold on the black market to a legitimate museum in Europe."

If such a skull exists, or if another fossil could be found, it would help paleontologists explore whether this dinosaur "had a weird skull befitting of its weird body," Brusatte says.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131104-dinosaur-hands-arms-body-mongolia/

Some sites even say two skulls have been poached...

[amargasaurus cazaui]

so the inference is this specimen was repatriated from a museum that purchased it, aware that it was linked to the existing portions of the same dinosaur. I do hope they can do some thorough testing to verify the infill and matrix corresponds and this is in fact from the same animal. Given the somewhat sketchy path it has taken thus far, there needs to be some solid verification of where, and what it is. The direct answer may not be quite as direct as we hoped.

[EmperorDinobot]

This all smells weird. This entire story has smelled weird since its inception.



For that, expect no reconstruction of Deinocheirus to ever come out of my hands. I have never attempted it, will not attempt it.


Those pictures are extremely bad, and repatriation is not always the best thing to do with a fossil. Info gets muddled, lost...gah.

[Funk]

More info: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25551-stolen-dinosaur-head-reveals-weird-hybrid-species.html#.U3Ev1XbG65J

Some interesting parts:

Suspecting the bones might be the missing pieces of Deinocheirus, the two checked with the Korean-Mongolian team and found that the skull fit perfectly with the body found in 2006.

The skull shows Deinocheirus was even weirder than palaeontologists had thought. "It looked to me like the product of a secret love affair between a hadrosaur and Gallimimus," says Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland in College Park. In overall body shape, Deinocheirus was similar to ornithomimosaurs like Gallimimus. The hadrosaur link comes from its snout.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I wish they would elaborate on how it fit perfectly...if the stories matched or they actually did mineral testing and solid verification to determine the skull was the same animal or even same location.

[Dinoguy2]

I don't think this skull is as weird and unusual as everyone is making it out to be... It looks identical to a gallimimus skull, except much larger and with an expanded beak, some of which looks likely due to distortion. Spoonbill shape has evolved dozens of times in stem birds alone (hadrosaurids, Ouranosaurus, rebacchisaurids, gnathosaurines, other Ornithomimidae to a lesser degree, Archaeorhynchus, ducks, actual spoonbills...) not THAT surprising to find yet another example among theropods.

[Yutyrannus]

Agreed.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I can see the sense in that comment and I tend to agree, I just hope they do the science on this before they get too far ahead of their speculations. Last thing the Paleo-world needs is another archeo-raptor fiasco

[Simon]

I wish they would elaborate on how it fit perfectly...if the stories matched or they actually did mineral testing and solid verification to determine the skull was the same animal or even same location.

Well, I am sure we'll know ... in 6-7 years (seems like it takes about that long before discoveries get described) ... until then the fact that they had a big ole ceremony to turn it over hopefully means that they did their due dilligence ...

...seriously, and we all thought that the Therizinosaurus was the weirdest dinosaur ever ... but nooooo ...there had to be an even stranger critter right next door ....

.... isn't it interesting how, in the apparent absence of sauropods from West Asia at the end of the Cretaceous, these two dinosaurs look like they evolved to fill that niche - even becoming vegetarians?  Amazing stuff ... Til these two were found, wasn't every single theropod found a carnivore?

[Simon]

Here is a Russian artist's new take on Deinocherias following the discovery of the skull:

[alexeratops]

That clears things up a bit. Maybe he was a fisher.

[Megalosaurus]

I agree with amargasaurus.
I think they are making a chimaera of 2 or even 3 animals.
Laydies & gentlemen we are seeing the real "Chaos Effect".

[Yutyrannus]

Why would you think that? It has only a superficial resemblance to other dinosaurs.

[Balaur]

That clears things up a bit. Maybe he was a fisher.

How so? There's no evidence that it is. All the evidence points to it being a herbivore. I do like the picture though.