Struthiomimus
| Struthiomimus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
77–66 mya
| |
|---|---|
| |
| Cast of an S. altus skeleton at the Royal Ontario Museum | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Class: | |
| Superorder: | |
| Order: | |
| Suborder: | |
| Infraorder: | |
| Family: | |
| Genus: | Struthiomimus Osborn, 1917
|
Struthiomimus was a long-legged, ostrich-like dinosaur of the ornithomimid family. It lived in what is now Alberta, Canada, during the Upper Cretaceous, about 75 to 65 million years ago.
Description
[change | change source]Struthiomimus is known from several skeletons and skulls.[1]
It differed from Ornithomimus only in proportions and details. It had a typical build and skeletal structure for an ornithomimid.[2] Its size was about 4.3 metres (14 ft) long and 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) tall at the hips, with a weight of about 150 kilograms (330 lb).[2]
As with other ornithomimids, it had a small slender head on a long neck. The neck was about 40% of the length of the body in front of the hips.[1] Its eyes were large and its jaws were toothless. Its vertebral column had ten neck vertebrae, thirteen back vertebrae, six hip vertebrae, and about thirty-five tail vertebrae.[3] The tail was stiff and was probably used for balance.[4] It ground food up in its gizzard, and may have been herbivorous or omnivorous.[5] The animals were quite common, which suggests they were herbivores or omnivores, rather than pure carnivores.[6]
References
[change | change source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Currie, Philip J. (2005). "Theropods, including birds". In Currie, Phillip J.; Koppelhus, Eva (eds.). Dinosaur Provincial Park: a spectacular ancient ecosystem revealed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 367–397. ISBN 0-253-34595-2.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Paul, Gregory S. (1988). "Genus Ornithomimus". Predatory dinosaurs of the world. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 384–394. ISBN 0-671-61946-2.
- ↑ The dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. 2004. ISBN 978-0-520-94143-4. OCLC 801843269.
- ↑ Osborn, Henry Fairfield (1917). "Skeletal adaptations of Ornitholestes, Struthiomimus, Tyrannosaurus" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 35: 733–771. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-07-20. Retrieved 2012-05-22.
- ↑ Barrett, Paul M 2005. The diet of ostrich dinosaurs (Theropoda: Ornithomimosauria). Palaeontology. 48 (2): 347–358.
- ↑ Paul, Gregory S. 1988. Genus Ornithomimus in Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 384–394. ISBN 978-0-671-61946-6