Bradycneme

Bradycneme Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 70Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Theropoda
Superfamily:	†Alvarezsauroidea
Family:	†Alvarezsauridae
Genus:	†Bradycneme Harrison & Walker, 1975
Species:	† B. draculae
Binomial name
Bradycneme draculae Harrison & Walker, 1975

Bradycneme is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the early Maastrichtian-age Upper Cretaceous Sânpetru Formation of the Haţeg Basin, Transylvania, Romania. It is known only from a partial right lower leg (specimen BMNH A1588), which its original describers believed came from a giant owl.

History

Harrison and Walker described two "bradycnemids" from Romania in 1975: B. draculae and Heptasteornis andrewsi. These specimens had initially been assigned to the supposed pelecaniform bird Elopteryx nopcsai. Bradycneme means "ponderous leg", from Ancient Greek bradys (βραδύς) "slow, ponderous" + kneme (κνήμη) "leg", as the holotype, BMNH A1588, a 37.8 millimetres wide distal tibiotarsus found by Maud Eleanora Seeley, would be very stout if the animal had been an owl, indicating a body height of two metres.^[1] The specific name draculae is derived from Romanian dracul, "the dragon" and refers to Dracula.^[1]

Starting with Pierce Brodkorb,^[2] the specimens were soon compared to small theropod dinosaurs. These three genera Bradycneme, Elopteryx and Heptasteornis have been synonymized, split, and reassessed numerous times since then^[3] in part because of the fragmentary nature of the remains; there exist three proximal femora and three distal tibiotarsi, which may belong to one, two or three species. Usually, at least one of them is considered to be a troodontid.

In the most recent assessments, Bradycneme and Heptasteornis were found to be the same and most likely basal members of the Tetanurae in one study,^[4] but Darren Naish did not follow the synonymy and found Heptasteornis to be an alvarezsaurid.^[5] Cladistic analysis is not too well-suited to assess the placement of such a fragmentary fossil, and finds Bradycneme to be implaceable among Maniraptora, but probably different from Heptasteornis which seems to belong into the Parvicursorinae subfamily of alvarezsaurids.^[6] In a 2011 classification, Tom Holtz assigned Bradycneme to the alvareszauridae, along with Heptasteornis.^[7]

Footnotes

References

• Brodkorb, Pierce (1978): Catalogue of fossil birds, Part 5 (Passeriformes). Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 23(3): 139-228.
• Csiki, G. & Grigorescu, D. (1998): Small theropods from the Late Cretaceous of the Hateg Basin (western Romania) - an unexpected diversity at the top of the food chain. Oryctos 1: 87-104.
• Harrison, Colin James Oliver & Walker, Cyril Alexander (1975): The Bradycnemidae, a new family of owls from the Upper Cretaceous of Romania. Palaeontology 18(3): 563-570. PDF fulltext
• Le Loeuff, J.; Buffetaut, E.; Méchin, P. & Méchin-Salessy, A. (1992): The first record of dromaeosaurid dinosaurs (Saurischia, Theropoda) in the Maastrichtian of southern Europe: palaeobiogeographical implications. Bulletin de la Société géologique de la France 163(3): 337-343.
• Mortimer, Michael (2004): The Theropod Database: Phylogeny of taxa. Retrieved 2013-MAR-02.
• Naish, Darren & Dyke, Gareth J. (2004): Heptasteornis was no ornithomimid, troodontid, dromaeosaurid or owl: the first alvarezsaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from Europe. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie Monatshefte 7: 385-401.
• Paul, Gregory S. (1988): Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-61946-2
• Stoker, Bram (1897): Dracula.
• Weishampel, D. B.; Grigorescu, D. & Norman, D. B. (1991): The dinosaurs of Transylvania. National Geographic Research and Exploration 7(2): 196-215. PDF fulltext