Lengthy-Passed Ostrich-Like Dinosaur Unearthed in Mexico | Sci.Information

A odd new genus and species of ornithomimid dinosaur has been recognized from the fossilized stays present in 2014 in Coahuila, Mexico.
Existence reconstruction of Mexidracon longimanus. Symbol credit score: Ddinodan / CC BY 4.0.
The newly-identified dinosaur species roamed Earth all through the Past due Cretaceous epoch, some 73 million years in the past.
Named Mexidracon longimanus, the traditional creature was once round 3 m (10 ft) in period.
It belongs to Ornithomimidae, a circle of relatives of theropod dinosaur that advanced a toothless beak and had been most likely omnivorous or herbivorous, superficially such as dwelling ostriches.
“Ornithomimosaurs are a clade of ostrich-like theropod dinosaurs characterised by means of reasonably small and mild skulls with massive orbits, lengthy necks, elongated forelimbs with non-raptorial manus and lengthy cursorial hindlimbs,” mentioned Dr. Claudia Inés Serrano-Brañas, a paleontologist at Smithsonian Establishment, the Universidad de Ciencias Geológicas y Sociales and the Benemérita Escuela Commonplace de Coahuila, and her colleagues from the USA, Mexico and Spain.
“Frame dimension can vary from small bureaucracy (over 12 kg), reminiscent of Nqwebasaurus thwazi and Hexing qingyi from the Early Cretaceous of Africa and Asia, respectively, to the huge Past due Cretaceous Asian species Deinocheirus mirificus (6 heaps).”
“Ornithomimosaurs are identified from Cretaceous geological formations in Europe, Asia, North The us and Africa.”
The fossils of Mexidracon longimanus had been came upon in 2014 within the Cerro del Pueblo Formation in Mexico.
“The Cerro del Pueblo Formation within the state of Coahuila represents some of the richest dinosaur-bearing formations from Mexico,” the researchers mentioned.
“As in different Higher Cretaceous formations of North The us and Asia, ornithomimosaur stays are fairly not unusual within the Cerro del Pueblo Formation.”
“Alternatively, nearly all of those specimens are extremely fragmentary, or even reasonably entire specimens have no longer been officially described.”
“Mexidracon longimanus represents the second one ornithomimosaur and the primary ornithomimid dinosaur species officially described from the Cerro del Pueblo Formation.”
Essentially the most conspicuous autapomorphy of the brand new species is the intense lengthening of its metacarpus, the bones that shape the palm.
“The discovering of Mexidracon longimanus provides to the expanding variety and paleobiogeographic distribution of the gang all through the Campanian of southern Laramidia,” the scientists mentioned.
“The ornithomimosaur document of the Cerro del Pueblo Formation represents but any other example of the coexistence of ornithomimids and deinocheirids spanning quite a lot of frame sizes inside this clade of ‘ostrich’ dinosaurs.”
The invention of Mexidracon longimanus is reported in a paper printed this week within the magazine Cretaceous Analysis.
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Claudia Inés Serrano-Brañas et al. An extended-handed new ornithomimid dinosaur from the Campanian (Higher Cretaceous) Cerro del Pueblo Formation, Coahuila, Mexico. Cretaceous Analysis, printed on-line January 28, 2025; doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2025.106087

Author: OpenAI