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Pygostyle‐like Structure from Beipiaosaurus (Theropoda, Therizinosauroidea) from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China

2003; Wiley; Volume: 77; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1755-6724.2003.tb00744.x

1755-6724

Xing Xu, Yen-Nien Cheng, Xiaolin Wang, Chun-Hsiang Chang,

Ichthyology and Marine Biology

Abstract Pygostyle was previously considered as a unique structure of ornithothoracine birds, used to maneuver tail feathers. A similar structure from an oviraptorosaurian dinosaur was considered functionally associated with the rectrices as in birds. We report a pygostyle‐like structure from a therizinosauroid dinosaur. The presence of filamentous integuments, but absence of rectrices, on the tail of this therizinosauroid, combined with other lines of evidence, suggests that the initial function of the pygostyle was not related to the rectrices.