Bird-like dinosaurs are believed to have roamed the Northern Hemisphere millions of years ago.
Researchers have recently been able to identify large-bodied specimens of ornithomimosaurs, which at that time may have been the world’s fastest dinosaurs. according to a report of newsweek, By examining fossil bones from Mississippi’s Utawa Formation, researchers have bridged a major gap in North America’s fossil record.
Bird-like dinosaurs are believed to have roamed the Northern Hemisphere between 145 million and 66 million years ago, the outlet adds.
“An ornithomimosaur refers to a particular group of bipedal dinosaurs, most of which generally look like ostriches,” said Tom Cullen, one of the study’s authors. Newsweek.
“They generally have large eyes, long arms with relatively large clawed hands, long legs, a long tail, and either little or no teeth…,” he added.
According to Phys.org, Research by Chinzorig Sogtbaatar of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and colleagues, published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 19, 2022, claims that ostrich-like ornithomimosaurs grew to enormous sizes in ancient eastern North America.
The so-called “bird-mimicking” dinosaurs, ornithomimosaurs, had short arms, powerful legs, and ostrich-like appearances. He had a small skull. The newly discovered remains, which date back about 85 million years and include leg bones, provide a unique perspective on the evolution of North American dinosaurs at a period that is little understood.
According to Chase Brownstein, a research associate at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center who was not involved in the research, the earliest ornithomimosaur species were all short-bodied and weighed about 26 pounds. Over time larger species began to evolve.
“The smallest species, such as the 125-million-year-old Chinese species Hexing Qingyi, were barely more than a meter long, while the largest, the 72-million-year-old Deinocherus mirificus of Mongolia, was a massive, hump-backed, giant-armed animal 33 feet. longer than that,” Mr Brownstein told Newsweek.