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Resolving the long-standing enigmas of a giant ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus mirificus

Nature volume 515, pages 257–260 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The holotype of Deinocheirus mirificus was collected by the 1965 Polish–Mongolian Palaeontological Expedition at Altan Uul III in the southern Gobi of Mongolia1. Because the holotype consists mostly of giant forelimbs (2.4 m in length) with scapulocoracoids2, for almost 50 years Deinocheirus has remained one of the most mysterious dinosaurs. The mosaic of ornithomimosaur and non-ornithomimosaur characters in the holotype has made it difficult to resolve the phylogenetic status of Deinocheirus3,4. Here we describe two new specimens of Deinocheirus that were discovered in the Nemegt Formation of Altan Uul IV in 2006 and Bugiin Tsav in 2009. The Bugiin Tsav specimen (MPC-D 100/127) includes a left forelimb clearly identifiable as Deinocheirus and is 6% longer than the holotype. The Altan Uul IV specimen (MPC-D 100/128) is approximately 74% the size of MPC-D 100/127. Cladistic analysis indicates that Deinocheirus is the largest member of the Ornithomimosauria; however, it has many unique skeletal features unknown in other ornithomimosaurs, indicating that Deinocheirus was a heavily built, non-cursorial animal with an elongate snout, a deep jaw, tall neural spines, a pygostyle, a U-shaped furcula, an expanded pelvis for strong muscle attachments, a relatively short hind limb and broad-tipped pedal unguals. Ecomorphological features in the skull, more than a thousand gastroliths, and stomach contents (fish remains) suggest that Deinocheirus was a megaomnivore that lived in mesic environments.

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Figure 1: Deinocheirus mirificus.
Figure 2: Skull of Deinocheirus mirificus (MPC-D 100/127).
Figure 3: Postcranial skeletons of Deinocheirus mirificus (MPC-D 100/127, MPC-D 100/128).
Figure 4: Phylogenetic relationships of Deinocheirus mirificus within Ornithomimosauria.

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Acknowledgements

Information gained from Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska and Wojtec Skarzynski (who respectively found and excavated the holotype) allowed us to refind the original quarry at Altan Uul III. Thanks go to all members of Korea-Mongolia International Dinosaur Expedition (KID) in 2006 and 2009. The KID expedition was supported by a grant to Y.-N.L. from Hwaseong City, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. Research support was from Korea Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources, Korea and Paleontological Center of Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Mongolia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geological Museum, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon, 305-350, South Korea

    Yuong-Nam Lee & Hang-Jae Lee

  2. Paleontological Center, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, 210-351, Mongolia

    Rinchen Barsbold & Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada,

    Philip J. Currie

  4. Hokkaido University Museum, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan

    Yoshitsugu Kobayashi

  5. Earth and History of Life, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Rue Vautier 29, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium,

    Pascal Godefroit

  6. Eldonia, 9 Avenue des Portes Occitanes, 3800 Gannat, France,

    François Escuillié

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Contributions

Y.-N.L. designed the project; Y.-N.L., R.B., P.J.C., Y.K. and H.-J.L. collected fossils and performed the research; P.J.C., P.G., F.E. and T.C. helped to repatriate the poached parts of the specimen so that they could be studied. H.-J.L. assembled figures; Y.-N.L. developed and wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors.

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Correspondence to Yuong-Nam Lee.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Skull of Deinocheirus mirificus (MPC-D 100/127).

a, In right lateral view. b, Line drawing in right lateral view. Scale bar, 10 cm. Abbreviations: an, angular; ar, articular; d, dentary; ect, ectopterygoid; EMF, external mandibular fenestra; j, jugal; l, lacrimal; mx, maxilla; oc, occipital condyle; pl, palatine; po, postorbital; pra, prearticular; prf, prefrontal; qj, quadratojugal; sa, surangular; scl, sclerotic ring; spl, splenial.

Extended Data Figure 2 Comparisons of femur length.

a, Skull length. b, Skull height. c, Snout length. d, Pubic boot length. e, Tibia length. f, Metatarsal III length in Tyrannosauridae and Ornithomimidae. The green triangle is Deinocheirus and the green square is Garudimimus.

Extended Data Figure 3 Fourth (upper) and seventh (lower) cervical vertebrae (a–f), and pygostyle (g–l) of Deinocheirus mirificus (MPC-D 100/127).

a, In anterior view. b, In posterior view. c, In left lateral view. d, In right lateral view. e, In dorsal view. f, In ventral view. g, In anterior view. h, In posterior view. i, In left lateral view. j, In right lateral view. k, In dorsal view. l, In ventral view. Scale bars, 5 cm.

Extended Data Figure 4 Dorsal vertebra 12 of Deinocheirus mirificus (MPC-D 100/128).

a, Specimen in left lateral view. b–d, Reconstructions (b, in left lateral view; c, in anterior view; d, in posterior view). Purple and red colours indicate lamina and fossae, respectively. Green colours indicate new terms used for Deinocheirus. Scale bar, 10 cm. Abbreviations: acpl, anterior centroparapophyseal lamina; cpof, centropostzygapophyseal fossa; cprf, centroprezygapophyseal fossa; cprl, centroprezygapophyseal lamina; d, diapophysis; ipol, infrapostzygapophyseal lamina; mcdl, middle centrodiapophyseal lamina; mcpaf, middle centroparapophyseal fossa; mcpdf, middle centropostdiapophyseal fossa; pa, parapophysis; pacdf, parapophyseal centrodiapophyseal fossa; pacprf, parapophyseal centroprezygapophyseal fossa; papcdl, parapophyseal posterior centrodiapophyseal lamina; pcdl, posterior centrodiapophyseal lamina; po, postzygapophysis; pocdf, postzygapophyseal centrodiapophyseal fossa; podl, postzygodiapophyseal lamina; posdf, postzygapophyseal spinodiapophyseal fossa; pr, prezygapophysis; ppdl, paradiapophyseal lamina; ppsdf, posterior postzygapophyseal spinodorsal fossa; ppsvf, posterior postzygapophyseal spinoventral fossa; prdl, prezygodiapophyseal lamina; presdf, prezygapophyseal spinodiapophyseal fossa; prpadf, prezygapophyseal paradiapophyseal fossa; prpl, prezygoparapophyseal laimina; prsdf, prezygapophyseal paradiapophyseal fossa; s, neural spine; sdl, spinodiapophyseal lamina; spof, spinopostzygapophyseal fossa; spol, spinopostzygapophyseal lamina; sprf, spinoprezygapophyseal fossa; sprl, spinoprezygapophyseal lamina.

Extended Data Figure 5 Right pedal digit II and unguals of Deinocheirus mirificus (MPC-D 100/127).

a, b, Digit II in dorsal and ventral views. Isolated right pedal phalanx II-2 was collected in 2009 and perfectly fits into the impression in the matrix attached to the poached phalanx II-1 (the red dot and solid lines indicate the contact face of the bone boundary with matrix, and the dotted area is matrix). c, Ungual of digit III in dorsal and ventral views. d, Ungual of digit IV in dorsal and ventral views. Scale bar, 10 cm.

Extended Data Figure 6 Strict consensus topology of six most parsimonious reconstructions of theropod relationships found in the phylogenetic analysis of 568 characters and 96 taxa.

Values indicate Bremer support derived from the BREMER.RUN script supplied by TNT.

Extended Data Figure 7 Stomach contents of Deinocheirus mirificus (MPC-D 100/127).

a, Photo to show in situ gastralia, gastroliths, and stomach contents. Blue and green arrows represent gastralia and gastroliths. Red rectangle is an area of scattered fish remains and gastroliths. Red circle is an area where broken fish bones are aggregated. b, Enlarged photo of scattered fish remains (vertebrae, scales) with gastroliths in a.

Extended Data Table 1 Allometric comparisons between ornithomimosaurs (or ornithomimids) and tyrannosaurids derived from the power equation y = bxk (solved using logarithmic translation Log y = k(Log x) + b)
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text for the discovery of MPC-D 100/127 and 100/128, an additional description of Deinocheirus mirificus, Cladistic analysis and Supplementary References. (PDF 458 kb)

Supplementary Data

This file contains Supplementary Data for measurements of MPC-D 100/127 and 100/128. (XLSX 24 kb)

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Lee, YN., Barsbold, R., Currie, P. et al. Resolving the long-standing enigmas of a giant ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus mirificus. Nature 515, 257–260 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13874

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