Conchoraptor
yanshini (Barsbold, 1981) skull
Archosauria: Saurischia: Maniraptora: Oviraptoridae
Locality:
Khulsan, Gobi Desert, southern Mongolia
Age: Late Cretaceous
(Campanian), 75 million years ago
Conchoraptor
is a primitive small theropod derived from the carnivorous theropods.
Out of this
stock arose many dinosaurs which were not necessarily carnivores.
On the roof
of the mouth of Conchoraptor were prominent bumps of bone
against which it would
have been possible for the animal to have crushed shells, eggs
or even nuts and
fruits against its toothless mandible. Conchoraptor, in fact, has no teeth
at
all. The skull was very light weight and the bones quite thin, just like those in
living
birds. It had a parrot-like beak and a crest along the top of the nasal
area. Conchoraptor
and all other oviraptors ran on hind legs like emus and ostriches,
but had fully functional
hands with three long fingers ending in sharp curved
claws that could have easily grasped
items like eggs and fruits. The oviraptors
come exclusively from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia.
They differ from other maniraptorans by toothless jaws with frontal parts
probably
covered by a horny bill. Such unusual structure provoked a suggestion that
oviraptors
("egg burglars") might feed on eggs of other reptiles, but it is more likely
they
fed on mollusks using powerful toothless jaws to crash their shells.
