Picture a giant, duck-billed, camel-backed, feathery omnivore that weighs a massive 7 tons.
It may sound like a hybrid creation straight out of the Jurassic World franchise — but this creature actually roamed the Earth some 70 to 66 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.
“Deinocheirus was a peculiar, humpbacked dinosaur with a duckbill-like skull that grew to Tyrannosaurus size,” says Yuong-Nam Lee, a professor at Seoul National University who helped describe new research on this quirky creature back in 2014.
Prior to the 2014 study, Deinocheirus was known from only two long arms, discovered in Mongolia; this led to its name, which means “terrible hand.” The fossils were uncovered in 1965, but for decades a lack of other finds meant this species remained a mystery.
Paleontologists, including Lee, turned to detective work to uncover more information.
In 2006 and 2009, the Korea-Mongolian International Dinosaur Expedition tracked down ...
