Deinocheirus

 

This is my entry to Bio-Cup 2024, semifinals, theme Feeding Strategies - Omnivore. This was the second idea I got for the theme. The first one was literal omnivore, all-eater, a hungry temple-sized demon eating everything, from priests to temple roof to park trees. I even had a punchline: "The sect didn't have enough faith for an omnipotent god, so they had to settle for an omnivorous one." There you go, you can imagine the MOC now. I even built a bit for it, adding some Technic cable holders as teeth to Star Wars Coruscant planet halves for teeth. Then I lost interest. It felt like burdensome task, building the temple and stuff in few days and with focus on Bionicle/Technic pieces. And above all I remembered the golden rule of Bio-Cup: Keep it simple, stupid! No high concept MOCs with million elements in them!

So, I turned back to my childhood. Aged 6 to 12 I was a big dinosaur (and other kinds of prehistorical fauna) enthusiast. One of the dinosaurs that intrigued me the most was Deinocheirus. It was one species of the Late Cretaceous Mongolian area, very rich in incredibly varied fossil finds. In July 1965 Polish paleontologist Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska discovered a pair of over 2-meter-long arms that belonged to a hitherto unknown theropod dinosaur. The genus was given name Deinocheirus, Greek for "Horrible Hand". But the mystery remained. Was it the largest carnivorous dinosaur ever lived? The arms surpassed any known species, yet belonged to a bipedal theropod. Most theropods were known to be meat-eaters.

It took until 2010s when people got more information on Deinocheirus - after an exciting case of fossil robbers and smuggles. Between 1965 and 2012 I was born, got some dinosaur books and was mystified by the case of horrible hands. I drew Deinocheiri (?) and tried to imagine what it would look like. At that time it was suggested that it was an ornithomimosaur, an ostrich-like dinosaur, a hypothesis that still stands today. But such large specied would have needed to eat a lot, and no eating habits was known, for example due to lack of skull. In my books Deinocheirus reached for tree branches with its big arms to eat leaves.

In 2010, more complete skeletons were claimed back from black market to Mongolia. Deinocheirus turned out to be better than I had ever imagined: Big, bulky, with long duck-like bill and tail fan feathers, possibly other feathers too. It looked friendly and was described being a megaomnivore - mostly eating plants but likely some fish and small animals too. Bulky foot toes suggested it was adapted to wetlands, being able to support its weigh on mud. This seems to be logical with the flat, round beak, similar to present day ducks. Actually, many life reconstructions of Deinocheirus look more like ducks than the original duck-billed dinosaurs - the hadrosaurs. There seems to have been a sort of parallel evolution going on.

I missed all of these discoveries as I didn't follow dinosaur discoveries. My interest turned to the history of architecture, I graduated and became making my Ph.D on bank architecture of Tampere. At some point I checked what the scientific community knew of Deinocheirus and was overjoyed. I left Deinocheirus be until I got this Omnivore theme and thought myself into corner with the demon idea. So here we are.

I began with the head as it's the most crucial part on defining a creature. The beak was quite easy (the tongue was the last addition to build though) but the eyes took many tries to get right. They were much larger at first. The colours are partly inspired by a Deinocheirus clip on Prehistoric Planet, narrated by Attenborought himself. I haven't seen the series but now I want to - especially as it features such a perfect duck-like Deinocheirus scratcing itself on a tree (Walking with Dinosaurs was a huge hit when I was a kid, 7 years old I think; I had a big book on it, and the DVD was the first thing we rented when we got a player). I added more bright colours though, as making it all brown wouldn't have been interesting - and there are not that many brown bonko parts...

I used brown on the two parts I built next: The tail with its porcupine-like feathers and the back dome with 14 updated dino tail segments (ironic that I didn't use them on the tail). The tail segments are from my Lugbulk I got last week; the spikes I've collected along the years. Before connecting the tail (and making the limbs) this looked quite a bit like a swimming mallard. The limbs changed it and made it look like a dinosaur. Sleeve feathers are common in many Deinocheirus life restorations and they are known to appear on some theropods, so I added them for colour. Building the stomach gave the creature some needed gravitas, and the tail fan finished the build. I also made a bit of scenery to underline the omnivorous wetland-roaming Deinocheirus hypothesis - and to use the Atlantis crab guy's head and torso and arms on a little, prehistoric crab monster.

We'll see if Deinocheirus allows me to make one Bio-Cup MOC more.

-Eero.