When scientists found the bones of two large dinosaur arms in Mongolia's Gobi Desert in 1965, they thought they belonged to a large and fearsome creature with killer claws, and why not? The animal had long hands measuring 2.4 meters with curved talons as long as 20 centimeters.
Because scientists only had the animal's arms and a few bone fragments, much about the animal remained a mystery for nearly half a century. However, with the discovery of its new skeletons, scientists were now able to paint a better picture of the dinosaur known as Deinocheirus mirificus, a name that means "unusual horrible hand."
Now that other crucial bones of the dinosaur have been found helping unravel its complete body, scientists now have a different view of the Deinocheirus and describe it as weird and goofy.
"Deinocheirus turned out to be one the weirdest dinosaurs beyond our imagination," said Yuong-Nam Lee, from the Geological Museum in Daejeon, South Korea, who, along with colleagues described the newly found specimens of the once mysterious dinosaur in a report published in the journal Nature on Oct. 22.
An analysis of the dinosaur's skeletons revealed that the Deinocheirus was the largest member of a group of dinosaurs known as ornithomimosaurs, which look like the modern ostriches. The Deinocheirus though was more beer-bellied compared with the typical ornithomimosaur.
The creature was also something that could remind Star Wars fans of Jar Jar Binks. It was toothless, had duck-billed snout and a massive tongue that the animal used to create suction so it could vacuum up food from the bottom of shallow bodies of water.
Just as expected, the Deinocheirus was huge. It was 11 meters long and weighed 6,000 kilograms, making it nearly as big as the carnivorous Tyrannosaurus rex. The Deinocheirus, however was not a ferocious predator. It neither had the ability to move quickly or make strong bites. Bite marks seen on its bones even suggest it was preyed upon by other dinosaurs.
The researchers suspect that Deinocheirus ate soft plants particularly those found at the bottom of streams and lakes. The gizzard stones and fish parts found in the animal's stomach area also suggest that it ate anything and that it used stones to grind up its food.
"Ecomorphological features in the skull, more than a thousand gastroliths, and stomach contents (fish remains) suggest that Deinocheirus was a megaomnivore that lived in mesic environments," the researchers wrote.
