"This creature wasn’t built for speed. That’s pretty obvious”
Scientists in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert have unearthed fossils that have
allowed them for the first time to build a complete picture of one of the more
bizarre-looking dinosaurs.
Deinocheirus mirificus, which means “unusual horrible hand” in Latin, has
stunned scientists with its strange combination of features, according to a
study in the journal Nature.
The recently discovered 70 million-year-old fossils suggest
deinocheirus was humpbacked, had a ”beer-belly,” tufts of feathers and wide
hips and feet that caused it to waddle.
“This is an entirely new body
plan,” said Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh
in the U.K.
The fossils add to bones that were discovered 50 years ago. Back then
scientists thought deinocheirus was smaller and fiercer, now they believe it
was about the size of Tyrannosaurus rex, Nature reports.
“This creature wasn’t built for speed,” says Brusatte. “That’s pretty
obvious.”
Scientists used data gathered from the fossils to create a video of
what the dinosaur may have looked like and how it may have walked.
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