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ABSTRACT
A partial ornithomimid skeleton, ROM 1790, from the lower Dinosaur Park Formation (upper Campanian) of Alberta was previously referred to Struthiomimus altus, but lacks diagnostic characters of that species. It is here described as the holotype of a new species, Rativates evadens, gen. et sp. nov., diagnosed by the form of the maxilla-jugal contact, the reduction of the mid-caudal neural spines, the convex fusion of the left and right ischial shafts, the straight-edged distal end of the third metatarsal, and possibly the relatively enlarged medial condyle of the tibia. A histological section of the femur confirms that the type specimen is not a juvenile, despite its relatively small size (approximately 50% the size of large individuals of Struthiomimus altus). Phylogenetic analysis recovers Rativates as a member of a derived ornithomimid clade that includes Ornithomimus, Struthiomimus, and the Asian taxa Anserimimus and Qiupalong. Fusion of the proximal tarsals to the tibia in some ornithomimid specimens was observed to be more complete than previously recognized, increasing the suite of features that these non-avian dinosaurs share homoplastically with birds.
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E0163526-7C26-4E8C-90C9-C72A3E90ED2D
SUPPLEMENTAL DATA—Supplemental materials are available for this article for free at www.tandfonline.com/UJVP
Citation for this article: McFeeters, B., M. J. Ryan, C. Schröder-Adams, and T. M. Cullen. 2016. A new ornithomimid theropod from the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta, Canada. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2016.1221415.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank C. Mehling, M. Norell, and C. Redford at the AMNH, M. Currie, J. Mallon, and K. Shepherd at the CMN; D. Evans, B. Iwama, and K. Seymour at the ROM; D. Brinkman, G. Housego, J. Northover, and B. Strillisky at the TMP; P. Currie, E. Koppelhus, and I. Macdonald at the UALVP; and W. Fitch and A. Russell at the UCMZ for assistance during collection visits. S. Sugimoto completed additional preparation of ROM 1790 for this project in 2015. L. Hall assisted with figures. This research was funded, in part, by a grant from the Dinosaur Research Institute. We thank J. Choiniere, M. D'Emic, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.