Beishanlong
Name:
Beishanlong
(Beishan dragon - Bei shan translates as white mountains, so an
alternative interpretation is White mountains dragon).
Phonetic: Bay-shan-long.
Named By: Peter J. Makovicky, Li Daiqing, Gao
Keqin, Matthew Lewin, Gregory Erickson and Mark A. Norrell -
2010.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Theropoda, Maniraptoriformes, Ornithomimosauria.
Species: B. grandis (type).
Diet: Uncertain, but possibly an omnivore as has
been presumed for other ornithomimosaurs.
Size: Estimated at up to 8 meters long.
Analysis of remains suggests that they were of a subadult and the
dinosaur grew slightly larger.
Known locations: China, Gansu Province.
Time period: Aptian/Albian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: A few individuals but of
partial post cranial remains.
The
remains
of Beishanlong are quite incomplete, but they
do tell us that this
was an ornithomimosaur
and a particularly large one at that. The team
of palaeontologists that described the first specimens came up with an
estimated length of up to eight meters long, but further study
yielded the discovery that the dinosaur the remains came from was not
fully grown at the time of death and was still near approaching adult
size. This means that while Beishanlong may have
easily been as large
of other large ornithomimids like Gallimius,
it may have even
exceeded them.
Although
the skull of
Beishanlong remains unknown at the time of writing,
it’s possible
that it may have retained teeth within a keratinous beak like other
primitive ornithomimosaur forms such as Harpymimus
and Pelecanimimus.
This idea is based upon comparison to other ornithomimosaur forms
which are known from the early/mid Cretaceous period. In later genera
such as Ornithomimus
and Struthiomimus
the teeth would be lost
completely, something which is the root cause of the confusion
regarding what ornithomimosaurs ate.
Further reading
- A giant ornithomimosaur from the Early Cretaceous of China -
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 277 (1679):
191–198 - Peter J. Makovicky, Daqing Li, Ke-Qin Gao, Matthew Lewin,
Gregory M. Erickson, Mark A. Norell - 2010.
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