Mystery of dinosaur with giant arms solved

[theHandpuppet]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29729412
22 October 2014
Mystery of dinosaur with giant arms solved
By Rebecca Morelle
Science Correspondent, BBC News

For half a century, all that was known about this dinosaur was that it had enormous forearms, measuring 2.4m-long (8ft) and tipped with three giant claws.

Its name Deinocheirus mirificus means unusual, horrible hands. In various reconstructions, it has been imagined as anything from a T. rex-type predator grasping at prey with its claws, to a giant, sloth-like climber, using its arms to dangle from trees...

...The international research team says the beast was very large, measuring about 11m (36ft) long and weighing six tonnes.

It had an elongated head with a duck-like beak, and a large humped sail on its back....

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Quote of the article, from a palaeontologist professor: "it's just so freaking weird"

What comes to mind is (ugh...) Jar Jar Binks:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/22/bizarre-dinosaur-reconstructed-deinocheirus-mirificus

Ah, I'm not the only one to think that:
http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2014/10/goofy_dinosaur_blends_barney_a.html

[Gothmog]

2. That is a weird looking dinosaur

[Yo_Mama]

3. Insect or grub eating?

Is very large, so must be ingesting high energy food sources.

Kind of looks like evolution pushed it toward being an anteater. The big arms are clearly functional - it's digging or gouging for something.

[cstanleytech]

5. Considering its size and the shape of its arms I would lean towards it attacking bee colonies.

After all grubs you have to go tearing up trees and hoping you get lucky and for its size it would to get lucky alot where as if its feeding on bee hives it has both the grubs and the honey both of which would provide it with plenty of energy.
It could also explain the longer arms to if they evolved to assist in pulling the hives apart.

[theHandpuppet]

6. According to the article, it was plants and fish

Seems odd to me.

[adirondacker]

7. Dabbling for salmon makes sense to me.

The quantity of intake had to be impressive.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Very cool ! I've been wondering about this for decades ...

first read about it in Zofia_Kielan-Jaworowska's book, Hunting for Dinosaurs -- unfortunately now long out of print -- which I picked up at an MIT Press sale. The author led several joint Polish-Mongolian paleontological expeditions, including the one which first found Deinocheirus. Apparently she is still alive -- it would be interesting to know her reaction !

[adirondacker]

8. It's pretty coincidental that I happened to catch a related story on NPR the other day...

"Hey, Sexy Dino, Show Me Your Feathers

by Christopher Joyce
Some of the weirdest animal behavior is about romance. That's especially true with birds — they croon or dance or display brilliant feathers to seduce the reluctant.

This sort of sexual display apparently has a long pedigree: There's now new evidence that some dinosaurs may have used the same come-on.

The source is a kind of dinosaur that was built like a 400-pound ostrich. It lived about 75 million years ago and is called ornithomimus, meaning "bird mimic."

Scientists in Canada found the fossilized bones of one in 1995 that looked different from what they'd seen before. It had mysterious markings on the forearms. Two more were found recently with even more pronounced markings. When paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky took a close look at them, she was surprised. "We were finding these winglike structures in these relatively primitive dinosaurs," she says. The markings were the remains of primitive feathers."

<SNIP>
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/26/163654780/hey-sexy-dino-show-me-your-feathers

Well worth a read and listen.