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Concept
Harpymimus
Summary
Harpymimus is a basal ornithomimosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Period of what is now Mongolia. Unlike later, more derived ornithomimosaurs, Harpymimus still possessed teeth, although they appear to have been restricted to the dentary of the lower jaw.
In 1981, a Soviet-Mongolian expedition uncovered a theropod skeleton in the Gobi Desert. In 1984 this was named and shortly described by Rinchen Barsbold and Altangerel Perle as the type and only species of the new genus Harpymimus: Harpymimus okladnikovi. The generic name Harpymimus is a reference to the fearsome Harpy of Greek mythology and derived from Greek ἅρπυια (harpyia), "Harpy", and μῖμος (mimos), "mimic". The specific name honours the late Soviet archeologist Alexey Pavlovich Okladnikov.
The holotype specimen IGM 100/29 (Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulan Bator, Mongolia) consists of an almost complete and articulated but compressed skeleton, lacking only portions of the pectoral girdle, pelvic girdle, and hindlimbs. It was recovered in the Dundgovi Aimag (Eastern Gobi Province), from an exposure of the Shinekhudag Formation now part of the Khuren Dukh Formation which dates to the Mid-Late Albian Other dinosaurs collected from the Shinekhudug Formation in Dundgovi include the ceratopsian Psittacosaurus mongoliensis.
Harpymimus was for the first time extensively described in a dissertation by Yoshitsugu Kobayashi in 2004. In a 2005 article, Kobayashi and Barsbold diagnosed Harpymimus based on a number of anatomical characteristics, including eleven teeth in the front of the lower jaw (dentary), the transition between anterior and posterior tail vertebrae taking place at the eighteenth caudal, a triangular-shaped depression above the dorsal surface of a ridge on the shoulder blade (scapula) above the shoulder joint, a low ridge above a distinctive depression along back edge of the shoulder blade, and a small but deep collateral ligament fossa on the lateral condyle of metacarpal III (a hand bone).
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