Oviraptor - Prehistoric Creatures #1

andyblack (62)in #steemstem • 7 years ago (edited)

When I was a child I used to have a large collection of toy dinosaurs, which I had acquired from chocolate surprise eggs. I was really fascinated by these peculiar creatures that used to inhabit the earth million years ago and I was always trying to learn more things about their species and their way of living. In addition, when Jurassic Park (1993) film came out, it literally blew my mind and made me love dinosaurs even more. So, I was thinking what to write on Steemit when I came with the idea to write some articles about dinosaurs and see how it goes.

So today I would like to introduce to you Oviraptor (Image above). I’m not sure why I picked this specific dinosaur for my first article, maybe I liked it’s name and you will find out about that shortly. So Oviraptor was a medium size ( 6ft /1.8 m) possibly carnivorous dinosaur which lived in Mongolia (Asia). It was discovered by technician George Olsen in an expedition and first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn (geologist, paleontologist), in 1924. It’s name means egg thief because the first fossil specimen was found near a pile of Proteceraptors eggs, however it was later known that the eggs probably belonged to Oviraptor itself and that the specimen was actually brooding its eggs, when it died at the nest. So it’s obvious that it' name is a misleading name.

Oviraptor had a distinctive skull, different from that of any other dinosaur, it’s head was similar to a parrot’s head with beak and no teeth. The beak was powerful enough to break objects hard as bones and also there was a hornlike crest above it’s snout. It had a bird like body balanced by the long tail and covered in feathered wings and feathered tail fans. Also it had 3 grasping fingers on each hand with curved nails about 3 in /8cm long.

This kind of dinosaur is classified under the suborder of the Theropoda and lived in the Cretaceous period, that means that he lived 75 millions years ago. It most certainly ate plants, fruits, insects and small animals. In the video below we can see Oviraptor stealing an egg for food which most certainly is a misconception.

Unfortunately, not many things are known about Oviraptor, this really misunderstood dinosaur, mostly because only a partial skeleton belonging to this dinosaur was discovered. Today, scientists are trying to gather more information about this specific specie, maybe in the future we will manage to learn more about it's way of life and how exactly it looked like.

Image Sources:

1.https://pixabay.com/el/%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%BD%CF%8C%CF%83%CE%B1%CF%85%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%B3%CE%B1%CE%B4-%CE%B8%CE%B7%CE%BB%CE%B1%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C-dino-958024/
2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oviraptor
3.https://pixabay.com/el/%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%BD%CF%8C%CF%83%CE%B1%CF%85%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%BF%CF%81%CF%85%CE%BA%CF%84%CE%AC-%CF%80%CF%8C%CE%BB%CE%B7-fukui-2525441/

References:

#science #greek-trail #education #animals