SHRI
A small dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia
Pronunciation: shree
Meaning: for Shri Devi
Author/s: Turner
et al. (
2021)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Ömnögovi, Mongolia
Discovery Chart Position: #1040
Shri devi
(for Shri Devi)Etymology
Shri devi is named for the Sanskrit female protector deity in Tibetan/Mongolian Buddhism. Part of the Gelug tradition and particularly venerated in Mongolia, Shri Devi (aka Palden Lhamo) rides a horse or donkey across an ocean of blood. Her accoutrements include a saddle of flayed human skin, the book of the law, and the dice of fortune.
Discovery
The remains of
Shri were discovered in the Barun Goyot Formation at Khulsan, Ömnögov, Mongolia, by Mark Norell in July 1991, during the first full scale joint expedition of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences—American Museum of Natural History to the Gobi Desert. It was excavated over a period of days by Mark Norell, James M. Clark, Lowell Dingus, and Altangerel Perle. Another dromaeosaurid named after a Tibetan Buddhist deity —
Kuru kulla — was found at the same site.
The
holotype (IGM 100/980) is partial articulated skeleton including 23 vertebrae from the neck, back and tail, pelvis, chevrons, parts of both legs and a right foot. This specimen was nicknamed "Ichabodcraniosaurus" by Norell, after the fictional Ichabod Crane who is haunted by a headless horseman, because it also lacked a head. However, a skull, albeit a partial one (ZPAL MgD-I/97), along with a foot, found during Polish-Mongolian Palaeontological Expeditions in 1970 at Khulsan and initially assigned to
Velociraptor, was moved to
Shri by Lucasz Czepinski in 2023.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Cretaceous
Stage: Campanian
Age range: 84-72 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: ?
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: ?
Diet: Herbivore
Shri rapax
The specimen that would become
Shri rapax was illegally poached before 2010, then spent years in Japan, England, France and Belgium, before being repatriated to Mongolia, minus its head and a chunk of its neck. The latter were removed at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) in 2016, and their whereabouts are currently unknown. However, scans were made at the time, which have since been used to create casts of the lost material that were added to the specimen in lieu of the missing parts. The robust skull of
Shri rapax suggests a bite more powerful than in other velociraptorines, while its hands are exceptionally robust with a very stout pollex (thumb) bearing an ungual (claw) proportionally larger than in any other dromaeosaurid. Those features, along with a peculiar combination of vertebral and pelvic characteristics, suggest
Shri rapax was built to hunt something that other Djadokhta Formation dromaeosaurids were not: A niche partitioning of prey preference in full effect.
References
• Turner AH, Montanari S and Norell MA (2021) "
A New Dromaeosaurid from the Late Cretaceous Khulsan Locality of Mongolia".
American Museum Novitates 3965:1-48
• Czepinski L (2023) "Skull of a dromaeosaurid dinosaur
Shri devi from the Upper Cretaceous of the Gobi Desert suggests convergence to the North American forms".
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 68. DOI: 10.4202/app.01065.2023.
• Moutrille L, Cau A, Chinzorig T, Escuillié F, Tsogtbaatar K, Ganzorig B and Godefroit P (2025) "A new bird-like dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia with extremely robust hands supports niche partitioning among velociraptorines".
Historical Biology: 1-32. DOI: 10.1080/08912963.2025.2530148.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
SHRI :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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