Elopteryx
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Extinct (fossil)
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| Elopteryx nopcsai Andrews, 1913 |
Elopteryx ("small wing") is a genus of maniraptoran dinosaur based on fragmentary fossils found in late Cretaceous Period rocks of Romania. The type species, Elopteryx nopcsai, is known only from two fragmentary upper leg bones (femora), and therefore is considered a nomen dubium ("dubious name") by most paleontologists.
Two other fragmentary theropods (Bradycneme draculae and Heptasteornis andrewsi) have been named from contemporaneous Romanian remains, both of which have been assigned to Elopteryx at one time or another. They were both named by Harrison and Walker (1975) from partial tibiotarsi and described as "Cretaceous owls". A number of studies have attempted to untangle what these animals were (Weishampel et al., 1991; Le Loeuff et al., 1991; Csiki and Grigorescu, 1998; and Naish, 2004), usually focusing on the Troodontidae (e.g. Paul, 1988; Weishampel et al., 1991) or Dromaeosauridae (e.g. Le Loeuff et al., 1991); more recently, Csiki and Grigorescu (1998) considered Bradycneme and Heptasteornis synonyms and unknown avetheropods, and Elopteryx a dubious maniraptoran, while Naish (2004) found Heptasteornis to be an alvarezsaurid, with no mention of the other two. Since all three are fragmentary, the debate will probably continue.
[edit] References
- Andrews, C.W. 1913. On some bird remains from the Upper Cretaceous of Transylvania. Geological Magazine 5:193-196.
- Csiki, G., and Grigorescu, D. 1998. Small theropods from the Late Cretaceous of the Hateg Basin (western Romania) - an unexpected diversity at the top of the food chain. Oryctos 1:87-104.
- Harrison, C.J.O., and Walker, C.A. 1975. The Bradycnemidae, a new family of owls from the Upper Cretaceous of Romania. Palaeontology 18(3):563-570.
- Le Loeuff, J., Buffetaut, E., Méchin, P., and Méchin-Salessy, A. 1992. The first record of dromaeosaurid dinosaurs (Saurischia, Theropoda) in the Maastrichtian of southern Europe: palaeobiogeographical implications. Bulletin de la Société géologique de la France 163(3):337-343.
- Naish, D. Heptasteornis was no ornithomimid, troodontid, dromaeosaurid or owl: the first alvarezsaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from Europe. Neus Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Mh. 7:385-401.
- Paul, G.S. 1988. Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. Simon & Schuster:New York 1-464.
- Weishampel, D.B., Grigorescu, D., and Norman, D.B. 1991. The dinosaurs of Transylvania. National Geographic Research and Exploration 7(2):196-215.
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