genus of reptiles (fossil) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Struthiomimus was a long-legged, ostrich-like dinosaur of the ornithomimid family. It lived in what is now Alberta, Canada, during the Upper Cretaceous, about 75 to 65 million years ago.
Struthiomimus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
77–66 mya | |
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Cast of an S. altus skeleton at the Royal Ontario Museum | |
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Genus: | Struthiomimus Osborn, 1917 |
Struthiomimus is known from several skeletons and skulls.[1]
It differed from Ornithomimus only in proportions and details. It had a typical build and skeletal structure for an ornithomimid.[2] Its size was about 4.3 metres (14 ft) long and 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) tall at the hips, with a weight of about 150 kilograms (330 lb).[2]
As with other ornithomimids, it had a small slender head on a long neck. The neck was about 40% of the length of the body in front of the hips.[1] Its eyes were large and its jaws were toothless. Its vertebral column had ten neck vertebrae, thirteen back vertebrae, six hip vertebrae, and about thirty-five tail vertebrae.[3] The tail was stiff and was probably used for balance.[4] It ground food up in its gizzard, and may have been herbivorous or omnivorous.[5] The animals were quite common, which suggests they were herbivores or omnivores, rather than pure carnivores.[6]
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