Oviraptorosaurs are a strange group of maniraptors that made their début in the fossil record of Early Cretaceous Asia, if not earlier, as small omnvores such as †Caudipteryx and continued through the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic as generalist/predators.  Primitive oviraptorosaurs, caenagnathids, were fairly mundane predatory dinosaurs with beaked mouths, long hind legs, large grasping hands, and lowsweapt skulls. More advanced oviraptorosaurs, the oviraptorids, sported large casques on their heads and a bizarre dentition consisting of a single pair of conical teeth.

CAENAGNATHIDAE (Vulgures, hogbirds, glucks, streks, etc.)

The end of the Eocene marked the extinction of the more flamboyantly strange oviraptorids, but the caenagnathids survive to the present day in Africa, Eurasia and North America. At first, a feathered, bipedal, long-necked, long-legged caenagnathid seems little different from any other small, predatory dinosaur. However, their toothless beaks, relatively short tails, and various anatomical details like their odd mandibular joints, distinguish these theropods as oviraptorosaurs.

VULTUROSAURINAE (Vulgures)

Unquestionably the most successful of the oviraptorosaur clades, vulgures are found across Eurasia, northern Africa, and North America. More heavily-built and catholic in diet than the deinonychosaurs, vulgures tackle a very wide range of food. These adaptable creatures have been known to eat fish, birds, carrion, grasses, tubers, fungi, insects, mammals – in short, anything organic that isn't outright poisonous. Most vulgures are small, no more than two metres in length, but a few species reach larger sizes.

A small but very widespread vulgure, the gollum is a carnivore/scavenger of the forest. These little creatures range from Great Britain to Russia, with related species spread across the northern hemisphere. Like most other vulgures, gollums are nocturnal, hunting at night and thereby avoiding direct competition with other small predators like harracks and bruisers. Probably because of the presence of bruisers across much of the gollums' preferred habitats, these little oviraptorosaurs are only indifferent scavengers. While gollums are as omnivorous as any other vulgure, they show a marked taste for fresh meat, which they can easily hunt with their sharp manual talons and ripping beaks. Gollums subsist mostly on a diet of mammals, birds, and fish, and also often raid the nests of other dinosaurs for eggs.

(fig. 1) Gollum, Noctivagus smeagol (Europe)

 

 

Despite being a close relative of the diminutive gollums, the grisly vulgure is one of the largest meat-eating maniraptorans of Eurasia. Though best known as a scavenger and a carrion-robber, its tendencies for carnivory aren't nearly as strong as one might assume based on its vulture-like appearance. Vulgures are, in fact, close in ecology to Home-Earth bears, and the grisly vulgure is the aptly-named giant of the clade, a massive creature often exceeding four metres in length.

Grisly vulgures exist in many regional subspecies extending from Scandinavia and the Atlas mountains to western North America. They do, in fact, kill and eat small animals, dinosaur chicks, and sometimes even fish. Most of their diet, however, consists of nuts, berries, roots, shoots, mushrooms and other herbaceous growth. Grislies are truly opportunistic omnivores, and often amongst the first dinosaurs to gather around the annual feast of the salmonite run.

(fig. 2) Grisly vulgure, Vulturosaurus acerbus (Holarctic)

Because of their size (large females can exceed the length of 4 meters), grisly vulgures can usually rip apart any likely-looking food they happen to find, be it a honey-tree or a lammox carcass. The only predators to match or surpass grisly vulgures in size are barbaroraptors and tyrannosaurs, but the oviraptorosaurs will gang together to drive even a hungry drakhan or strider from a fresh kill.

When the female grisly comes into heat, she calls for potential mates with a ghastly howl, which can be heard many kilometers beyond the boundaries of her territory. These mating calls were known to spexplorers for many years before their source and meaning had been unraveled. This lead to the legend of the "boreal banshee", a name still occasionally used for the grisly vulgure itself.

A related species, the savanna vulgure (Vulturosaurus africanus), contributes to making the African savannas an unsafe but relatively clean place. Though the crunchercrocs often reach a carcass faster, the large ovirpatorosaurs are adaptable in their diet and will gladly dine upon the smaller scavengers.  Similar in most respects to the Eurasian and North American vulgures, savanna vulgure is actually the smallest species of its genus and also the most lightly-built, probably in adaptation to its arid habitat. 

 

 

(fig. 3) The major groups of African dinosaurs spread under the African sun.  A priscataur hunts saurolopes in the distance, pursuing them toward the giant shapes of the grazing grassbags.  Closer to the viewer, a a small herd of hornmeisters also grazes, unperturbed by the giant abelisaur behind them. In the immediate foreground, a vulgure has found a choice piece of carrion.

With its red throat and ceres, the North American red vulgure (Vulturosaurus americanus) could almost be confused with the Indian red vulgure (V. ruber), a close relative of the savanna vulgure. The North American species must have split relatively early from the branch that led to the other vulgures, however, as demonstrated by its retention of several "old-fashioned" anatomical features, such as large hands and powerful manual claws. The nature of this vulgure suggests that the clade evolved in North America.

 

 

Most North American red vulgures live farther south than any grisly vulgure; where the two species overlap, competition is nevertheless avoided, as the two species have almost entirely different diets, the red vulgure eschewing carrion in favor of live-caught mammals and reptiles and fish. 

(fig. 3) North American red vulgure, Vulturosaurus americanus (central and southern North America)

SUINAVIINAE (Glucks and hogbirds)

Gallosaurines are an odd group of slender, long-legged caenagnathids with a predilection for foliage that has earned the clade the Latin title of "chicken-lizards". These little animals are actually more like Home-Earth pigs than chickens in their habits, although they are certainly more herbivorous than their cousins, the vulgures.

The fossil record of oviraptorosaurs in the Tertiary is notoriously poor, but mitochondrial analysis indicates a wide gap between the vulturosaurines and the suinaviines + cervaviines (although these groups are more closely related to each other than to the weird neopsittacids). Based upon this data and some fossil fragments from Spec's Pakistan, specbiologists believe that Suinaviinae and Vulturosaurinae parted ways in the Miocene. Since that time, the glucks and hogbirds have diversified further and now consist of several clades of omnivorous runners.

The red-hat gluck (Gallocephalus macdonaldi) is a typical gallosaurs (Gallocephalini). Like all African glucks, the red-hat lacks a crest, but its neck skin is bare and brightly coloured in males, with a red wattle adding to the effect.

The long pedal claws are used for digging up roots or burrowing animals (or inflict nasty wounds to anyone foolish enough to attack the gluck from the front).

Red-hat glucks can be found across the dry savannas of Africa.

(fig. 4) Red-hat gluck, Gallocephaus macdonaldi (subsaharan Africa)

A close relative of the red-hat gluck, the yellow-faced gluck is a slightly larger and much more social creature.  Living in the scrub and grassland of Africa's eastern coast, yellow-faced glucks congregate in troupes of over a dozen individuals.   Gluck social structure has attracted much attention from the scientific community, but observation has yielded little insight into the social structure of these oviraptors.  Troupes are not lead by a single male or female, but, it seems, by the entire collection of adult individuals.  When the troupe defends its territory or collectively gathers food, for example, no individual acts before any other.  Rather, the entire adult population acts at the same time, each member of the troupe performing some part of the task at hand.  Certainly, these oviraptors are capable of complex communication, and the accepted hypothesis concerning their coordinated behavior is that the glucks 'tell' each other what to do in certain circumstances, a mode of behavior that is intriguingly close to human. 

Efforts to translate the glucks' vocabulary of clicks and peeps have met with little success, and critics point out the small size of the glucks' brains relative to their body size.  The theory proposed to explain the glucks' complex behavior in the absence of intelligence is flocking, with each individual obeying its own simple set of instincts in relation to other members of the troupe.  Computer simulations of gluck behavior seem to corroborate this 'dumb gluck' hypothesis, but most field researchers still maintain that "there's something going on in those heads.  I guess you have to be there."

 

(fig. 5) Combed gluck, Gallocephalus meleagrides (India)

 

The combed gluck is a denizen of the jungles of India, where it eats a variety of plant and animal matter.  Unique among the glucks, the males of this species grow a fleshy rooster-like crest during the breeding season. 

(fig. 5) Combed gluck, Gallocephalus meleagrides (India)

 

 

 

 

 

It is easy to see why early spexplorers gave the nostritch its name. Through convergent evolution, this taxon has come to closely resemble the ostriches of Home-Earth and the ornithomimids of both worlds, as well as its cousins, the streks (see below). The nostritch is actually a large gluck, even though it hardly even looks oviraptorosaurian.

Nostriches are fairly widespread across Africa on both sides of the Sahara, as well as in the Middle East. Fossils, however, indicate that these odd creatures evolved in the Eurasian steppe during the warmer past, around the Miocene-Pliocene boundary.

 

 

(fig. 6) Nostrich, Pseudostruthio africanus (Africa and Near East)

 

 

 

 

When specbiologists first observed a living Suinavis asper, they must have wondered if they were looking at a bird or a pig, since they immediately decided to name it the hogfowl. For reasons now forgotten, the name has since come to mean the British subspecies, and the common name of the Eurasia-wide occurring species has changed to hogbird. The basic implication of the name, however, remains the same.

This forest-dwelling Eurasian animal is indeed very much like wild boar on chicken legs, despite the external differences (and a couple of internal ones as well) and its somewhat larger size (up to 1.5 m in total length). Hogbirds are omnivorous, leaning towards herbivory. It is hard to think of anything edible hogbirds wouldn't at least attempt to swallow, and so it is no surprise that they are some of the most adaptable animals on the continent. Hogbirds are, however, limited to the temperate and subtropical zones.

The green-brown-black colouration of a hogbird's stiff, hair-like plumage blends into the background of the forest. The feathers on its back and neck are in fact quite stiff and prickly – though nowhere near as sharp as the quills of a manticorant. When you add to that the sharp claws on a hogbird's hands and feet, and of course its fearless and aggressive nature, one has to wonder why anything would want to try their luck with one of them. They are, however, among the principal prey of draks.

(fig. 6) Hogbird, Suinavis asper (western and northern Eurasia)

The jungle hogbirds (Choerornis) of Africa's rainforests are close relatives of the hogbird. Up to 2 m in length, these stocky animals like to scavenge, and have been seen running after African dogbunnies, but normally they eat leaves, shoots and fallen fruits. Jungle hogbirds also use their strong arms to pull branches down, therizinosaur-style.

 

 

 

(fig. 7) Greater jungle hogbird, Choerornis silvester (central Africa)

ARIAVIINAE (Ramfowl and snowstreks)

During the late Miocene, a clade closely related to Suinaviinae reached the cooler parts of North America. Largely pure herbivores, these dinosaurs have converged heavily upon the streks (see below) and were at first classified with them. Ariaviinae achieved a moderate but short-lived diversity in the late Miocene and early Pliocene, of which only the ramfowl remains.  Today, most cursorial herbivores in the northern latitudes are true streks.

The 1.5 m long ramfowl is North America's answer to the mountain streks. Living in grassy areas up and down the Rocky Mountains, ramfowl are a common but rarely seen part of the alpine ecosystems of North America. Males have wide and thick bone and keratin crests that function much the same way as the horns of a mountain goat.  During the breeding season, male ramfowl will stand at right angles to each other and swing their heads together, cracking their casques together to produce a noise like a thunderclap. 

The coordination necessary to produce this noise is a product of both native skill and, surprisingly, practice.  Observation has indicated that, unlike mammalian mountain goats, ramfowl do not compete so much as cooperate in their noisy endeavors, yearling males pairing up with older mentors and practicing their head-banging for over a month before the breeding season begins.  Females invariably mate with the older male in a pair, but the apprentice male stands a much better chance of mating in the next season.

(fig. 8) Ramfowl, Ariavis montana (North America – Rocky Mountains)

 

 

CERVAVIINAE (Streks and mountain-streks)

The Ice Age of the late Pliocene and Pleistocene profoundly altered the balance of the northern hemisphere's animal life, much more so than it did in our timeline. While Home-Earth, ruled by furry mammals, saw much extinction and re-arrangement of species as the glaciers ground southward, these ecological perturbations pale in comparison to the massive upheavals of Spec's late Pliocene and Pleistocene, as entire groups of large, scaly herbivores found themselves suddenly unsuited to their environment. Titanosaurs, hadrosaurs, and ceratopsians vanished from Europe, Asia north of the Himalayas, and most of North America in a geological eyeblink, and their replacement is a process that is still under way.

Therizinosaurs, of course, quickly placed themselves in all large herbivore niches in this vast area; some, the panhas and lemeks, even readapted to a running lifestyle. Some paraselenodont mammals, the specerotheres, started growing tremendously, but the oviraptorosaurs finally emerged as the Northern Hemisphere's dominant deer-analogues. Having just diverged from the glucks and hogbirds, the streks quickly became the most diverse cursorial herbivores of the coniferous and mixed forests as well as the freezing mountain ranges of the northern hemisphere, keeping the mainly grass-eating ceronychids from becoming important leaf-eaters, and the specerotheres from growing to the sizes of Home-Earth's "ungulates".

Streks and mountain-streks are anatomically only a little different from their omnivorous cousins, and most of the changes are associate with a shift in diet toward strict herbivory. Their skulls are stronger than those of other caenagnathids and better capable of crushing woody plant material, the air-filled chambers that characterize the pneumatic heads of most maniraptors having been largely replaced by bone. The gut is expanded, forcing the pubes back as in segnosaurs and ornithischians. The hands are small, the fingers only weakly clawed, but the legs are long and powerful.

The gold-crested strek is one of the largest Eurasian streks (Cervaviini), growing up to two meters tall. The male has a large yellow and black crest on his head, similar to the bony casque sported by the long extinct †Oviraptor, the streks' distant relative. The gold-crested strek's crest is not bone, however, but keratin, an extension of the beak that runs backward along the skull and flares up into a flag signaling the male's potency during the mating season, when it is used in ritual battles over the domination of harems of up to 20 females.

The males' crests, along with the females' smaller, black knobs, also serve as protection against branches and thorns as the streks run through the forest, serving much the same function as a Home-Earth cassowary's casque.

(fig. 8) Male gold-crested strek, Cervavis reconcilius, and head of female (western and northern Eurasia)

 

 

 

 

Smaller and more lightly built than gold-crested strek, the johnny deere (Elaphornis deerei) is perhaps the most common strek. The casque of males of this species becomes bright green during mating time, and this bright flash of color is often the only clue to a deere's presence in the forest.  These little oviraptorosaurs are superbly camouflaged and very skittish, making sightings difficult. 

 

(fig. 9) Johnny deere, Elaphornis deerei (southern and central Europe)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mountain-streks (Caprogallini) have settled in Eurasia's mountain ranges, where they have developed shorter bodies and necks to save heat in their treeless environments. In most species, the vertebrae at the tail base are lengthened, producing a long balancing organ, which the streks use as they leap from one rocky outcropping to another in the manner of a Home-Earth chamois or mountain goat.  Mountain-streks also make use of their large, clawed hands in scrambles up sheer rock faces.

Mountain-streks live at lower altitudes than honas, but feed mainly on the tough mountain vegetation and other foodstuffs found along the craggy mountainsides. Due to the interesting details of their evolutionary history as a group, the species are fairly distanced from one another, due to their isolation in mountainous areas. From the typical base features of the Pliocene lowland members of the group similar features (such as short necks and powerful manual claws) may have arisen independently. However, the fossil record and genetic testing show that all mountain-streks are closely related; it is assumed that they migrated between Eurasia's largely near-contiguous mountain belts in the ice ages when the tundra-like conditions of the high mountains also ruled the plains.

 

The gamsgans is a fairly typical mountain strek, inhabiting the mountains of central and eastern Europe, where they eat any and all plant material they can find growing on the alpine cliffs.  The small crest that grows from the males' skulls during the breeding season is the only visible difference between the sexes of this species, but, unlike other mountain streks, does not seem to be involved in any mating ritual.  In any case, male gamsgans do not seem to engage in the sort of flamboyant displays usually associated with such headgear.  Some biologists have speculated that the crests of the male gamsgans are relicts from their evolutionary past, but it is more likely that we simply have not yet observed the mating rituals of this secretive species.

(fig. 10) Male gamsgans, Rupricapranser alpinus, in mating season (Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines and Carpathians)

 

The Himalayan mountain-strek, though probably closely related to the slightly larger gamsgans, could not be more different in behavior.  These little herbivores are loud and gregarious, collecting into herds of several dozen individuals for their protracted and highly stylalized mating rituals.  The late spring valleys of the Himmalayas echo with the hoots of the streks, as males furiously bob and shake their heads, showing off their large and impressive crests.

During the rest of the year, the Himalayan mountain streks are hardly less vociferous, useing a wide range of calls to communicate with each other as they comb over the slopes of their home mountains.  Herds also post look-outs, watching carefully for predators like the kochilla and the ninja .  Upon an alarm call from one of these scouts, the entire herd flies up the mountain like a flock of enormous, jumping birds. 

(fig. 11) Male Himalayan mountain-strek, Caprogallus tibetanus, in mating season (Himalayas, Pamir, Hindukush, Tian Shan)

Quite similar to a true strek except for its long feathers, the snowstrek (Villopluma rostricornu) is thought to have spread from the frigid mountains to the frigid plains during one of the recent ice ages. Large herds of these 2 m long animals now roam under the shadows of arctotitans and lammoxes on the steppes that encircle the Arctic Ocean. This freezing habitat has led to certain specializations, such as the flat horn-like crest found in both sexes, which can be used to dig for food from under a thin cover of snow, and the enlarged nasal cavity that forms a very distinct bump on both sides of the head.

(fig. 9) Snowstrek, Villopluma rostricornu (Holarctic arctotitan steppes)

 

 

 

 

NEOPSITTACIDAE (Seedcrackers)

Seedcrackers are highly derived oviraptorosaurs whose cranial anatomy differs immensely from other species of the clade. In the seedcrackers, the beak has evolved to deal with hard seeds and nuts. This extreme specialization has caused a de-pneumatization of the skull similar to that seen in the streks, but the seedcrackers are only distantly related to that relatively new branch of the oviraptorosaur tree. Seedcrackers probably evolved early in the Cenozoic, but the nature of their ancestors remains mysterious. Most palaeontologists ally them with the caenagnathids, making them cousins to the glucks, streks and vulgures, but others, pointing mostly to hand anatomy, place the otherwise long-extinct oviraptorids (like †Oviraptor itself) as the most likely ancestors of the seedcrackers. Still others place the roots of this clade even further back, finding links with the Early Cretaceous †Incisivosaurus. This hypothesis in particular is hotly contested, and only new fossils can shed light on the issue.

Possessing excellent eyesight and an advanced sense of smell, the crimson seedcracker  is a tiny species (25 cm in length), found only in the jungles of southeastern Asia. Male of the species sing a rich repertoire of melodies and are fiercely territorial, attacking any member of their species who sports more red plumage than they do. Female plumage is a drabber version of the males'.

(fig. 12) Crimson seedcracker, Nucirepertor sanguineus (southeast Asia); about natural size

The cenobite seedcracker, arguably the most beautiful seedcracker species, lives in a bizarre, complicated symbiosis with the paintree of southeast Asia. Reaching up to 1 m in total length, it is not as small as the crimson seedcracker, but still as small as expected for a ground-living seed- and fruit-eater.

(fig. 7) Gorillabird, Hapaloraptor robustus (central Africa)

Deep in the green hell of Africa there resides a big black beast with a green underside and green stripes on its legs. It seems to be exclusively herbivorous, but fearsome tales are told of its enormous strength. Hard facts about the gorillabird (Hapaloraptor robustus), however, are difficult to come by. Despite its small tail, it reaches a length of 6 m (not 8 as the first expedition claimed), and its well-guarded nests contain only 2 eggs the size of rugby balls.

Preliminary investigations place this mighty oviraptorosaur next to the tiny seedcrackers, based mainly on its large, powerful head, its impressive beak, and limited genetic evidence. This result produces more riddles than it solves. Why are there so big and so small seedcrackers, but none of intermediate sizes? Did seedcrackers evolve in Asia or Africa? What does it need this extra-huge head for ? Are there some sort of coconuts in Spec's African rainforests? Even the diet of this enormous creature is as yet unknown.

Daniel Bensen, Tiina Aumala, David Marjanović, João Boto, and Timothy Morris

                                                     ,=Noctivagus smeagol (Gollum)
                                                     |
                                   ,=Vulturosaurinae=|                 ,=V. acerbus (Grisly vulgure)
                                   |                 |               ,=|
                                   |                 |               | | ,=V. ruber (Indian red vulgure)
                                   |                 `=Vulturosaurus=| `=|
                                   |                                 |   `=V. africanus (Savanna vulgure)
                                   |                                 |
                                   |                                 `=V. americanus (North American red vulgure)
                                   |
                                   |                                                  ,=G. macdonaldi (Red-hat gluck)
                                   |                                  ,=Gallocephalus=|
                  ,=Caenagnathidae=|                 ,=Gallocephalini=|               `=G. meleagrides (Combed gluck)
                  |                |                 |                |
                  |                |   ,=Suinaviinae=|                `=Pseudostruthio altus (Nostritch)
                  |                |   |             |
                  |                |   |             |            ,=Suinavis asper (Hogbird)
                  |                |   |             `=Suinaviini=|
                  |                | ,=|                          `=Choerornis=Choerornis silvester
                  |                | | |                                       (Greater jungle hogbird)
                  |                | | `=Ariaviinae=Ariavis montana (Ramfowl)
                  |                `=|   
                  |                  |
                  |                  |                          ,=Cervavis reconcilius (Gold-crested strek)
                  |                  |             ,=Cervaviini=|
=Oviraptorosauria=|                  |             |            `=Elaphornis deerei (Johnny deere)
                  |                  `=Cervaviinae=|

                  |                                |                  ,=Rupricapranser alpinus (Gamsgans)

                  |                                |               ,=|

                  |                                |              |   `=Caprogallus tibetanus (Himalaya mountain-strek)
                  |                                `=Caprogallini=|
                  |                                                `=Villopluma rostricornu (Snowstrek)

                  |
                  |=†Oviraptoridae=†Oviraptor
                  |
                  |=†Caudipteryx
                  |
                  |=†Incisivosaurus
                  |
                  |                  ,=?Hapaloraptor robustus (Gorillabird)
                  `=?Neopsittacidae=|
                                    |               ,=N. sanguineus (Crimson seedcracker)
                                    `=Nucirepertor |
                                                    `=N. cenobitoides (Cenobite seedcracker)

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