Itemirus
Extinct genus of dinosaurs
Itemirus is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Turonian aged Bissekty Formation of the Late Cretaceous period of Uzbekistan.
01Discovery
Itemirus is known from a single small, damaged fossil braincase or neurocranium, in 1958 found near the village of Itemir at the Dzharakuduk escarpment in layers of the Bissekty Formation. This holotype has accession number PIN 327/699. The type species, Itemirus medullaris, was named and described by Sergei Kurzanov in 1976. The generic name refers to Itemir. The specific name refers to the medulla oblongata, the part of the brain encased by the partial braincase.
02Classification
Kurzanov noted anatomical similarities to the Tyrannosauridae and the Dromaeosauridae; he assigned Itemirus to a separate Itemiridae. In 2004, Thomas Holtz suggested it was a member of the Tyrannosauroidea. Nicholas Longrich and Philip J. Currie in 2009 included Itemirus in a cladistic analysis of internal dromaeosaurid relationships and found it to be a velociraptorine. In 2014, during a study assigning more material to Itemirus, it was found that the genus could be placed in Dromaeosaurinae in a phylogeny.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Itemirus”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Itemirus.png by PaleoEquii, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Itemirus medullaris.jpg by Ghedoghedo, CC BY-SA 4.0
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