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Concept
Timeline of ornithomimosaur research
Summary
This timeline of ornithomimosaur research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the ornithomimosaurs, a group of bird-like theropods popularly known as the ostrich dinosaurs. Although fragmentary, probable, ornithomimosaur fossils had been described as far back as the , the first ornithomimosaur to be recognized as belonging to a new family distinct from other theropods was Ornithomimus velox, described by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1890. Thus the ornithomimid ornithomimosaurs were one of the first major Mesozoic theropod groups to be recognized in the fossil record. The description of a second ornithomimosaur genus did not happen until nearly 30 years later, when Henry Fairfield Osborn described Struthiomimus in 1917. Later in the , significant ornithomimosaur discoveries began occurring in Asia. The first was a bonebed of "Ornithomimus" (now Archaeornithomimus) asiaticus found at Iren Debasu. More Asian discoveries took place even later in the 20th century, including the disembodied arms of Deinocheirus mirificus and the new genus Gallimimus bullatus. The formal naming of the Ornithomimosauria itself was performed by Rinchen Barsbold in 1976.
Early research into ornithomimosaur evolution was based on comparative anatomy. In 1972, Dale Russell argued that the Jurassic Elaphrosaurus of Africa was an ancestral relative of ornithomimids. The descriptions of Garudimimus and Harpymimus in the revealed the existence of primitive ornithomimosaurs outside of the Ornithomimidae proper. Subsequent research and discoveries during the refined science's knowledge of ornithomimosaur evolution. In 1994, Pelecanimimus polyodon was described from Europe, the first known ornithomimosaur from that continent and apparently a very evolutionarily primitive taxon. From the late 1990s into the early cladistic evidence mounted against Russell's hypothesis that ornithomimosaurs were descended from a close relative of Elaphrosaurus, and favored an ancestry close to Pelecanimimus.
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