The Paleontologist community in China and around the world are all aflutter over a recent find in the Erlian Basin of Inner Mongolia. Known more for its heavy oil potential and favorite export - pollution, northeastern China is the preferred stomping ground for the savvy petroleum geologist. As a complete aside, it also boasts the prettiest portion of the gene pool, or so says one of my stomping friends having explored much of Asia. So, home to pretty women today and, as it would seem, an enormous bird-like dinosaur some 70 million years ago. Fancy that.
Only a youngster when he passed away, Gigantoraptor erlianensis, would have been a worthy competitor with his robust frame - another nail in the coffin for the notion that dinosaurs shrank in size as they developed bird-like characteristics.
This big fella, weighing in around 3,000 lbs, would have been roaming around with the duckbilled dinos and seeing the first flowering plants to grace the planet.
This early bird was definitely big enough to get the worm. And if you were able to fry this little (err, big) baby, you'd have BBQ bragging rights for a long time to come...
China seems to be having a real Golden Age with respect to dinosaur fossils, especially in provinces where there had been a lot of volcanic activity which in turn produced a lot of volcanic ash that has preserved the soft tissue in many specimens as well as the bones.
Just a little bit of trivia that is indirectly related to your article: did you know that of all the birds in the world today, the only one that has been documented killing a human being is the Ostrich? When you were talking about Gigantoraptor erlianensis for some reason it made me think of that. I guess birds still retain some of the more aggressive traits of their theropod ancestors after all. lol
Thanks for the post. Quite an interesting find. : )