Bradycneme

History

In 1975, Harrison and Walker described two "bradycnemids" from Romania: B. draculae and Heptasteornis andrewsi. These specimens had initially been assigned to the supposed pelecaniform bird Elopteryx nopcsai. The generic name, Bradycneme, comes from the Ancient Greek grc (βραδύς), meaning "slow, ponderous" and grc (κνήμη), meaning "leg", as the holotype, BMNH A1588, a 37.8 mm wide distal tibiotarsus found by Maud Eleanora Seeley, would be very stout if the animal had been an owl, with a body height of about 2 m. The specific name, draculae, is derived from Romanian dracul, meaning "the dragon," and refers to Dracula.

Starting with Pierce Brodkorb, the specimens were soon compared to small theropod dinosaurs. Bradycneme, Elopteryx and Heptasteornis have been synonymized, split, and reassessed numerous times since then 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, but Darren Naish and Gareth J. Dyke did not follow the synonymy and found Heptasteornis to be an alvarezsaurid, while classifying Bradycneme as an indeterminate maniraptoran. In a 2011 classification, Tom Holtz assigned Bradycneme to the Alvarezsauridae along with Heptasteornis.

References

Bibliography

• (1978): Catalogue of fossil birds, Part 5 (Passeriformes). Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 23(3): 139–228.
• (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.
• (1975): The Bradycnemidae, a new family of owls from the Upper Cretaceous of Romania. Palaeontology 18(3): 563–570.
• (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.
• (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.
• (1988): Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York, Simon & Schuster.
• (1991): The dinosaurs of Transylvania. National Geographic Research and Exploration 7(2): 196–215. PDF fulltext

References

1. Harrison & Walker (1975)
2. Brodkorb (1978): pp.223-224
3. Paul (1988), Weishampel ''et al.'' (1991), Le Loeuff ''et al.'' (1992), Csiki & Grigorescu (1998), Naish & Dyke (2004)
4. Csiki & Grigorescu (1998)
5. Naish & Dyke (2004)
6. Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2011) ''Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages,'' [http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/dinoappendix/HoltzappendixWinter2010.pdf Winter 2010 Appendix.]