Yurgovuchia
Name:
Yurgovuchia
(From the Ute word ‘yurgovuch’ which means coyote).
Phonetic: Yur-go-vu-che-ah.
Named By: Phil Senter, James I. Kirkland,
Donald D. DeBlieux, Scott Madsen & Natalie Toth -
2012.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Theropoda, Dromaeosauridae, Dromaeosaurinae.
Species: Y. doellingi
(type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Roughly estimated around 2.5 meters long.
Known locations: USA, Utah - Cedar Mountain
Formation, Yellow Cat Member.
Time period: Barremian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial post cranial remains
including cervical (neck), dorsal (back) and caudal (tail)
vertebrae as well as a partial pubis.
Yurgovuchia
was a small dromaeosaurine
theropod that is often described as being
‘coyote sized’. Although Yurgovuchia is only
known from very
incomplete remains, mapping the known bones to the proportions of
related but better preserved dromaeosaurs has yielded a rough estimate
of around two and a half meters, though much of this figure would
have been tail. As a member of the Dromaeosaurinae sub group of the
Dromaeosauridae, Yurgovuchia is thought to be
related to other
members of this group such as Dromaeosaurus,
Achillobator
and
Utahraptor.
Utahraptor in particular seems to have had a close
association with Yurgovuchia given that, fossils
of both of these
genera are known from the same geological area, though Utahraptor
was
considerably larger than Yurgovuchia.
The
type species name is in honour of the geologist Helmut Doelling who is
well known for his extensive work mapping Utah as well as discovering
the Doelling’s Bowl fossil sites where the Yurgovuchia
holotype remains
were later discovered by Donald D. DeBlieux in 2005.
Further reading
- New dromaeosaurids (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Lower Cretaceous
of Utah, and the evolution of the dromaeosaurid tail. - PLoS ONE
7(5):e36790. - P. Senter, J. I. Kirkland, D. D. DeBlieux, S. Madsen
& N. Toth - 2012.
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