Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous |Life restoration of Avimimus
portentosus.| Avimimus (meaning "bird mimic") was a recently-
discovered maniraptoran. It was a very fast moving, light-
weight, bird-like theropod dinosaur that lived in the late
Cretaceous in what is now Mongolia, around 70 million years ago.
that may have had feathers. The forelimbs were relatively short.
The bones of the hand were fused together, as in modern birds,
and a ridge on the ulna (lower arm bone) was interpreted as an
attachment point for feathers by Kurzanov. Kurzanov, in 1987,
also reported the presence of quill knobs, and while Chiappe
confirmed the presence of bumps on the ulna, their function
remained unclear. Kurzanov was so convinced they were attachment
points for feathers that he concluded that Avimimus may have
been capable of weak flight. The presence of feathers is now
widely accepted, but most paleontologists do not believe
Avimimus could fly. - 'Avimimus'. In: Dodson, Peter et al. The
Age of Dinosaurs. Publications Intern