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Deinocheirus

By , About.com Guide

Deinocheirus (Luis Rey/www.luisrey.ndtilda.co.uk)

Name:

Deinocheirus (Greek for "terrible hand"); pronounced die-no-CARE-us

Habitat:

Deserts of Asia

Historical Period:

Late Cretaceous (70 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About 15 feet long; weight unknown

Diet:

Probably omnivorous

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Long arms, with three long fingers on each hand

About Deinocheirus:

Deinocheirus is a case study in how much extrapolation paleontologists have to do based on limited evidence. All we know for sure about this dinosaur is based on a handful of fossil remains--specifically, two long forelimbs and bits of ribs and vertebrae--that were dug up in Southern Mongolia in 1970.

Still, that hasn't kept experts from speculating. It's surmised that Deinocheirus had a bipedal stance, and used its long, clawed arms to hunt down and eat smaller prey (although some paleontologists theorize that it may have used its long fingers to climb trees--and thus may have had a herbivorous diet, like modern sloths). The current consensus is that Deinocheirus was an ornithomimid ("bird mimic"), making it one of the few ornithomimids whose name doesn't end in "mimus".

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