HAPLOCHEIRUS
an alvarezsaurian theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of China.
Pronunciation: HAP-lo-KY-ruhs
Meaning: Simple handed
Author/s: Choiniere
et al. (
2010)
Synonyms: Non known
First Discovery: Xinjiang, China
Discovery Chart Position: #723
Haplocheirus sollers
(Simple handed skillful one)Etymology
Haplocheirus is derived from the Greek "haplo" (simple) and "cheir"
(hand). The
species epithet,
sollers, means "skilful" in Latin.
The most advanced alvarezsaurids only had one functional digit—the thumb—which was adorned with a massive claw that they possibly used for digging or breaking through tree bark to find food. Funnily enough,
Haplocheirus, which is considered primitive, had "simple hands" with three digits and could presumably perform "skilful" actions (for example, grasping) that its more advanced clan members could not. Among its digits, the middle one was the longest. But its thumb was by far the most robust, indicating an early evolutionary step toward the specialized, single-digit hand found in later alvarezsaurids.
Discovery
The remains of
Haplocheirus were discovered at Wucaiwan in the
upper part of the Shishugou Formation, Junggar Basin, Xinjiang, China, by W. Ding and T. Yu, and excavated by the crew of the Sino-American field expedition, in 2004.
The
holotype (VPP
V15988) is a nearly complete skeleton, missing only the
end of its tail and bits of the ilia (hip bones).
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Jurassic
Stage: Oxfordian
Age range: 161-156 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 2 meters
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: 20 Kg
Diet: Carnivore
References
• Choiniere JN, Xu X, Clark JM, Forster CA, Guo Y and Han F (2010) "
A Basal Alvarezsauroid Theropod from the Early Late Jurassic of Xinjiang, China".
Science, 327(5965): 571-574. DOI: 10.1126/science.1182143.
• Choiniere JN, Clark JM, Norell MA and Xu X (2014) "Cranial Osteology of
Haplocheirus sollers Choiniere
et al., 2010 (Theropoda: Alvarezsauroidea)".
American Museum Novitates, 3816: 1-44.
DOI: 10.1206/3816.1.
• Molina-Pérez R and Larramendi A (2016) "
Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs: The Theropods" [aka Dinosaur Facts and Figures: The Theropods and other Dinosauriformes].
• Hartman S, Mortimer M, Wahl WR, Lomax DR, Lippincott J and Lovelace DM (2019) "A new paravian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of North America supports a late acquisition of avian flight".
PeerJ, 7: e7247. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.7247.
• Qin Z, Zhao Q, Choiniere JN, Clark JM, Benton MJ and Xu X (2021) "Growth and miniaturization among alvarezsauroid dinosaurs".
Current Biology, 31(16): 3687-3693.e5. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.013.
• Guinard G (2022) "The forelimbs of Alvarezsauroidea (Dinosauria: Theropoda): Insight from evolutionary teratology".
Journal of Morphology, 283(9): 1257–1272. DOI: 10.1002/jmor.21500.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
HAPLOCHEIRUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/HAPLOCHEIRUS›. Web access: 06th Mar 2026.
