Finding and assembling an entire dinosaur skeleton isn't just difficult, it's almost impossible. Finding a single bone can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and finding an entire skeleton can take years. Even if a skeleton is assembled, a ridiculous amount of research is required to verify that the bones indeed belong to the same creature, as entire skeletons are hardly ever found in one piece. On top of all of that, the findings may become outdated just a few years down the line.
With modern technology, such an occurrence is much less frequent than it used to be, but paleontologists are still extremely careful about publishing their findings. So, when a new dinosaur is discovered, the scientists are looking to be as accurate as possible. When Deinocheirus mirificus was revealed, few were expecting 'Jar Jar Binks' to be an accurate description.
Deinocheirus mirificus (pronounced DY-noh-KY-ruhs mur-IHF-ee-kuhs) was essentially an enormous duck. The reptile was 16 feet tall and 36 feet long, or about the size of two city buses stacked on top of each other. Deinocheirus also weighed approximately seven tons, which roughly translates to about three SUVs. The creature was absolutely massive, though it wasn't a predator. The only real defense it seemed to have were claws on its hands and feet, but those wouldn't have been used for hunting. Considering the dinosaur didn't have any teeth, it wouldn't have had much use for hunting in the first place. Deinocheirus' duck bill would have been used for pulling plants out of the water, not feasting on other animals. Its dorsal sail reinforces the idea that deinocheirus was most at home in the water or wetlands.
Scientists believed that Deinocheirus roamed ancient Mongolia around 70 million years ago, placing it near the tail end of the Cretaceous period. To put that into perspective, it would be another five million years before the dinosaurs were wiped out and went extinct, so it seems that Deinocheirus existed near the tail end of the dinosaurs' lifespan.
What's amazing is that it took paleontologists over 50 years to finally put deinocheirus together. Originally, the only fossils found were of massive, 8-foot-long forearms, which is hardly enough to even theorize what the skeleton was like. Eventually, scientists returned to Mongolia to look for the rest of the creature and succeeded; the full findings were published in Wednesday's edition of Nature.
Most people either think of hulking monsters or lumbering giants when dinosaurs come to mind, but it's easy to forget that there were just as many giant, goofy-looking ducks roaming the planet as well.
