Ostrich-like dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurs grew to enormous sizes in ancient eastern North America, according to a study published October 19, 2022, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Chinzorig Tsogtbaatar of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and colleagues.
October 19, 2022
Ostrich-like dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurs grew to enormous sizes in ancient eastern North America, according to a study published October 19, 2022, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Chinzorig Tsogtbaatar of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and colleagues.
During the Late Cretaceous Period, North America was split by a seaway into two landmasses: Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to the east. But fossils from Appalachia are rare, and therefore ancient ecosystems from this region are poorly understood. In this study, Chinzorig and colleagues describe new fossils of ornithomimosaur dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Eutaw Formation of Mississippi.
Ornithomimosaurs, the so-called “bird-mimic” dinosaurs, were superficially ostrich-shaped with small heads, long arms, and strong legs.
