Shri

An illustration of an extinct dromaeosaur, a "raptor" dinosaur. It's fully-feathered and birdlike in appearance, and has a slender snout, large sickle claws on its feet, winglike arms, and a long stiff tail.

About 72 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous of what is now Mongolia, a dead dromaeosaurid dinosaur lost its head.

30 years ago, in 1991, its headless fossilized remains were discovered during a joint Mongolian Academy of Sciences / American Museum of Natural History expedition in the Gobi Desert.

For a long time the specimen was known only by the nickname of “Ichabodcraniosaurus”, in reference to a character haunted by a headless ghost in the story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – but now it’s finally been given a full scientific description and a proper name.

Say hello to the first new non-avian dinosaur of 2021, Shri devi!

Named after a buddhist deity, this little dinosaur was around 2m long (6’6″), roughly the size of a modern peacock or wild turkey. It was a very close relative of Velociraptor, but lived in a slightly different part of the ancient Gobi than its famous cousin, giving us a glimpse of how dromaeosaurid species varied across that region.

A map of the Gobi region of Mongolia and China, showing locations where various dromaeosaurid dinosaur fossils have been found.
[ From fig 28 in Turner, A. H. et al (2021). A New Dromaeosaurid from the Late Cretaceous Khulsan Locality of Mongolia. American Museum Novitates. https://doi.org/10.1206/3965.1 ]

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