New Bird-Like Dinosaur from Mongolia Had Extremely Robust Hands
Paleontologists have identified a new species of dromaeosaurid dinosaur from an almost complete and articulated skeleton found in the 2000s in Mongolia.Life reconstruction of Shri predict. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.The newly-identified dinosaur roamed our planet during the Campanian age of the Cretaceous period, between 75 and 72 million years ago.
Based on several derived features in its skull, vertebrae and skeleton, the species is referrable to a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs called the Dromaeosauridae.
Named Shri predictit is only the second species in its genus; the other species, Shri deviwas described in 2021.
“Dromaeosauridae is a clade of small- to medium-sized theropod dinosaurs known from several Cretaceous units from North America, Asia, Europe, South America and eventually Antarctica and Madagascar,” said lead author Andrea Cau and colleagues.
“Feather-like integumentary structures, true pennaceous feathers and...