‘TERRIBLE HAND’ RETURNS HOME

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Fossil remains of Deinocheirus (Greek: Terrible Hand) has been returned from Germany to the Mongolian Paleontological Center. The fossils were presented in Ulaanbaatar to Culture Minister of Mongolia Ts.Oyungerel by a delegation of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences led by Dr Pascal Godefroit. Deinocheirus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur, possibly an ornithomimosaurian, which lived in what is now southern Mongolia, during the late Cretaceous Period (Nemegt Formation, dating to around 70 million years ago). The first known fossil remains are a single pair of massive forelimbs and the remains of some ribs and vertebrae. They were found on 9 July 1965 during a Polish-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi by Professor Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska at the Altan Ula III site in Omnogovi Province. The find was reported by her in 1966. Deinocheirus was named by Halszka Osmolska and Ewa Roniewicz in 1970. The type species and only named species is Deinocheirus mirificus. The generic name is derived from Greek δεινός, deinos, "terrible", "horrible", and χείρ, cheir, "hand". The specific name is Latin for 'unusual', 'peculiar'.