DEINOCHEIRUS
Probably one of the weirdest dinosaurs ever discovered, the true appearance of Deinocheirus mirificus (dino-kai-russ mir-if-E-cuss) was only recently discovered. Because of this, I will be walking you through all the different ways Deinocheirus has been depicted.
Original Discovery
In 1965, a pair of massive dinosaur arms were discovered in Mongolia. These arms gave their owner the name of Deinocheirus, meaning "terrible hand". Deinocheirus originally thought to have been a giant Tyrannosaurus rex or Velociraptor like creature that was the top predator of its world, killing anything it could catch.
First Long Term Reconstruction
Eventually, it was decided that Deinocheirus was a member of the ornithomimosauria, the group containing Gallimimus. Thus, it was reconstructed as a featherless, ostrich-like creature. However, while most ornithomimosaurs were ostrich sized, Deinocheirus was the size of Tyrannosaurus rex. This image of Deinocheirus would later be updated when it was decided that ornithomimosaurs possessed feathers. However, the body shape of Deinocheirus would not change until 2013.
New Discovery
In 2013, 48 years after the discovery of the original arms, new fossils of Deinocheirus were discovered in the same site as the original fossils. These new fossils showed that Deinocheirus was unlike any dinosaur yet discovered. It had a head that looked like a spoon, and a set of elongated vertebrae along its back. These vertebrae could have supported either a sail, or more likely, a hump like a bison or camel. Stranger still, one fossil was discovered with a fish in its stomach, suggesting that Deinocheirus might have been an omnivore, eating both plants and fish.
Extinction
Fossil evidence indicates that Deinocheirus went extinct 69 mya, just before the rest of the dinosaurs went extinct. However, it is possible that it could have survived till the great extinction event, making its fate the same as every other non-avian dinosaur.
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Image Credits
All images have been cropped to fit the space required
All images are used under Fair Use laws
Image credits are listed from top to bottom and from left to right
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Deinocheirus
Original painting by: Andrey Atuchin
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Deinocheirus fossil
Original picture by: Eduard Solà
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Old style Deinocheirus
Original painting by: De Agostini Picture Library, Getty Images
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Deinocheirus skeletal study
Original painting by: Scott Hartman