Hagryphus
Name: Hagryphus
(Ha’s griffin).
Phonetic: Ha-grif-us.
Named By: L. E. Zanno & S. D.
Sampson - 2005.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Theropoda, Oviraptorosauria, Caenagnathidae.
Species: H. giganteus
(type).
Diet: Omnivore?
Size: Uncertain due to the fact that the holotype
specimen is a single hand which is about 30 centimetres long.
Assuming that this hand is scaled to the same approximate body
proportions as other related oviraptorids, then the holotype
individual of Hagryphus might be about 3 meters
long.
Known locations: USA, Utah - Kaiparowits
Formation.
Time period: Campanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Single hand. Fragmentary
foot bones have also been attributed to the genus.
Hagryphus
is another one of those dinosaur genera that teases us about a prospect
of being unusually large, yet known only from partial remains, in
this case a hand. At about thirty centimetres long this hand is
larger than that known for any other oviraptosaur
with the sole current
exception of Gigantoraptor.
This in turn has led to a very rough
estimate of the genus of about three meters long for the holotype and
if this is correct then Hagryphus would be the
largest known
oviraptorid dinosaur on the North American continent. For
comparison, most known oviraptorids are under two meters in length,
though some such as Citipati
from Asia are thought to have been
comparable in size to Hagryphus. All these pale
in comparison to
the aforementioned Gigantoraptor however, which
was at least eight
meters and almost three time larger than the estimate for Hagryphus.
The
Hagryphus holotype fossil was recovered from the
Kaiparowits Formation
in Utah. An increasing number of dinosaur genera have been discovered
in this formation since the start of the twenty-first century, and
these as well as many other established genera are now known. These
include hadrosaurs
like Parasaurolophus
and Gryposaurus
as well as
ceratopsian
dinosaurs such as Utahceratops,
Kosmoceratops
and
Nasutoceratops.
Being plant eaters and aside from possibly being
territorial and protective of young, most of these dinosaurs probably
would not have bothered about Hagryphus. Serious
threats to Hagryphus
however may have come from troodontid
dinosaurs like Talos,
and
particularly tyrannosaurs
like Teratophoneus.
Further reading
- A new oviraptorosaur (Theropoda, Maniraptora) from the Late
Cretaceous (Campanian) of Utah. - Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology 25(4):897-904. - L. E. Zanno & S.
D. Sampson - 2005.
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