Anzu wyliei
The Chicken from Hell
Anzu wyliei is a strange, bird-like creature.
He has an exceptionally high and thin bony ridge on his skull.
This dinosaur has a huge beak with sharp edges and no teeth. The anatomy of its jaw joint is just as unusual. The lower jaw can slide forward and backward in one gliding motion, probably to “slice” the food.
Anzu also had feathers on his upper arms.
Because of its appearance and the location where it was found, called "Hell Creek Formation", it was nicknamed Chicken from Hell.
| Profile | To |
|---|---|
| epoch | Late Cretaceous period, about 69 million years ago |
| Order | Lizard-pelvis dinosaur (Saurischia) |
| Subordination | Theropoda |
| Family | Caenagnathidae |
| group | Caenagnathinae |
| genus | To |
| Art | Anzu wyliei |
| Height | 1.5 meters |
| length | 3 to 3.5 meters |
| Weight | 200 kg to 300 kg |
| Locations | North Dakota and South Dakota |
Size
It was up to 3.5 meters long and its hip height was 1.50 meters. Its weight is estimated at 200 to 300 kg.
It resembled a large, flightless bird with feathers on its tail and arms. Its neck and hind legs were long and slender, not unlike those of an ostrich. However, its forelimbs were equipped with large, sharp claws.
Furthermore, Anzu had a long tail like a lizard, which negates the resemblance to an ostrich.
Behave
Scientists believe that Anzu was able to run very fast.
It was not specialized to a particular ecological niche. The anatomy of its jaw suggests that it was capable of consuming a wide variety of foods. It is thought that it ate both plants and small animals, and may even have been able to crack and eat eggs.
Anzu is not related to birds, but its bird-like features suggest that it exhibited many bird-like behaviors. The large crest on its head, made of extremely thin bone, was probably used for display purposes, much like the cassowary in Australia, which uses its crest to attract mates.
The Anzu bones are the first detailed evidence that oviraptorosaurs also lived in North America.
It belongs to a group of dinosaurs known as Oviraptorosauria. Most of the evidence for their existence comes from fossils discovered in Central and East Asia.
About the size of a small car, the dinosaur also had claws and feathers on its upper arms.
Scientists quickly realized that the bones they had found belonged to a carnivorous dinosaur.
Because the bones of carnivorous dinosaurs are hollow, and the bones that were found were hollow.
The Caenagnathidae also include Apatoraptor from the Upper Cretaceous of Canada. Citipati from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia belongs to the Oviraptoridae, a neighboring family within the Caenagnathoidea.
Discovery of Anzu wyilei
The dinosaur was assembled and identified from individual parts of three skeletons collected in North and South Dakota.
Together they form an almost complete skeleton, which allows good conclusions to be drawn about its appearance.
Approximately 80% of the skeleton could be reconstructed in this way.
Two partial skeletons were found by private collectors and later acquired by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh;
Mike Triebold
Nuss family
The third partial skeleton was unearthed by Tyler Lyson and his team from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in North Dakota.
Lyson was also one of four scientists who jointly determined the genus Anzu.
The quartet also included Hans-Dieter Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History; lead author Matthew Lamanna, assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History; and Emma Schachner, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Matthew Lamanna, who came up with the name of the species, originally wanted to use a Latin or Greek version of "Chicken from Hell".
However, this term could not be translated well, so it became the name To chose. A bird-like demon from Sumerian mythology. This term can be roughly compared to “heavenly eagle” be translated.
All three Anzu skeletons are now housed in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
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Image sources: Fred Wierum, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Skull: Kabacchi, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Skeleton: Tadek Kurpaski from Pittsburgh,PA, USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Hand: James St. John, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons