Talk:Deltadromeus

Size

I have to desagree with Carcharodontosaurus being smaller than Deltadromeus. It states in this page that Deltadromeus weighs about 3.5 tones but in the Carcharodontosaurus page it states that Charcharodontosaurus weighs about 4 tones, close in weight but there is still a defferance. I do agree that Deltadromeus being longer. Spinosaur 06:33, 26 March (UTC)

Yeah, "shorter" would be better.Dinoguy2 01:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. wrote in his Book, Deltadromeus is about 8 m long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.3.113.41 (talk) 08:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Which book? The problem might be that he's not including specimens once classified as Bahariasaurus. Dinoguy2 (talk) 23:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I have e-mailed an Guy from Dinosaur Data Dig.

You don't say whether you prefer imperial or metric measures - so I'll settle for metric:)
Deltadromeus:
Length: 900 cm
Height: 240 cm
Weight: 1500 kg
Carnivore; predator of herbivorous dinosaurs.
Cheers,
Alex
Dr Alex Davidovic, CEO 

Dinosaur Central

It is only 8 - 9 m long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.3.113.40 (talk) 15:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Those sound like measurements for the holotype specimen. What about the referred specimens that used to be classified as Bahariasaurus? Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Diet

Now that Deltadromeus and Elaphrosaurus are recognized as basal ceratosaur (a ceratosaur that is neither a ceratosaurid nor an abelisauroid), their diets is very interesting Now Limusaurus is a basal ceratosaur too: Limusaurus skull clearly shows herbivory. Limusaurus postcranial skeleton resembles so much skeletons of Deltadromeus and Elaphrosaurus. But neither Deltadromeus skull nor Elaphrosaurus skull has been ever found: this means we cannot be sure about their carnivory. What if Deltadromeus and Elaphrosaurus are actually herbivores? This could explain why there were much more carnivores than herbivores in their habitats: Carcharodontosaurus, Spinosaurus, Kemkemia, Suchomimus, Rugops. And the only herbivores are Rebbachisaurus and Ouranosaurus. Maybe there were herbivorous ceratosaurs! Note that Deltadromeus, Elaphrosaurus and Limusaurus are so closely related each other that a new family "elaphrosauridae" could even be created http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/06/limusaurus_is_awesome.php http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/limusaurus-%E2%80%93-an-herbivorous-ceratosaur/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brisio (talk • contribs) 13:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

What about paralititan? Spinodontosaurus (talk) 21:50, 26 November 2009 (UTC) And Jobaria? Spinodontosaurus (talk) 13:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Image

Why does the bottom image (the one with 2 Delta's and a Carcharo) show them with feathers? There is evidence for the smaller ones having them but i highly doubt those two would. If any large theropod would it would likely be T-Rex as (correct me if im wrong) it was closer related to birds than allosaurus. In other words, do we have a better picture? Spinodontosaurus (talk) 22:30, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

See the last comment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Carcharodontosaurus#Image FunkMonk (talk) 22:36, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

True, but to me its about as accurate as giving a croc feathers. Spinodontosaurus (talk) 17:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Not really, because crocs aren't more bracketed by feathered heterodontosaurids :) It's a huge stretch given the allosaur skin impressions though, but it can't be totally ruled out unless other allosauroid skin impressions are found. Dinoguy2 (talk) 19:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Wel yes good point. But if they didhave feathers then wouldnt that strongly point towards T-Rex having feathers? Since Rex was closer to Birds than Allosaurids. Spinodontosaurus (talk) 13:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, he have a few small patches of T. rex skin showing scales, but it's possible they did have feathers on some parts of their bodies. It's also possible that many large dinosaurs lost feathers due to their size, but we can't know whether this would hold true for all of them. Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I just noticed something in this image that does require its removal--the hands are flexed as if they had a semilunate carpal! Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:02, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Stuff

I just looked at the revision history for Deltadromeus and found that some one added something along the lines of 'Rivaled Giganotosaurus in size' but it was removed. Just wonderin why since it is correct. Spinodontosaurus (talk) 20:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Based on online interpretation of published data, as well as the fact that it's probably synonymous with Bahariasaurus. Once this is all formally worked out we can add it, but this article will probably disappear anyway :) Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

WTF?

It was not the mid-Campanian age 95 million years ago and this time was actually the late Cenomanian epoch. Buy a book on geology will ya?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.137.134 (talk) 22:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, it's fixed. J. Spencer (talk) 23:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

New Image

I went to the Burpee Museum and saw GIANTS: African Dinosaurs. They have a Deltadromeus there and I took a picture. I was just just woondering if I could put it on Wikipedia. Taylor Reints (talk) 01:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that this image focuses on the skull alone. The skull of Deltadromaeus is unknown, and this mount is somewhat infamous among paleontologists for making up a lot of extraneous, unknown details like the large lachrymal horns. Basically, I'd advise against including a photo of a completely speculative piece of paleoart that does not also include parts of the skeleton based on real fossils. I'll add that with the discovery of the apparently closely related Limusaurus, it is possible, if not likely that Deltadromaeus was an herbivore, a discovery that would completely invalidate the entire sculpture in the photo. MMartyniuk (talk) 02:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I almost even cropped out the head from the current taxobox image. You could technically call it art, because all of the skull is completely invented, therefore violating American copyright. Unless some of it is directly based on some related form? FunkMonk (talk) 03:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The mount was created when it was still thought to be a coelurosaur IIRC, so some of it is probably done after tyrannosauroids. MMartyniuk (talk) 04:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly, there seems to be an alternate version of the skull: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BOpx09vwuYQ/VEP_xedvclI/AAAAAAAAA-s/zLnuPTIFvUU/s1600/DSCN2345.JPG FunkMonk (talk) 23:22, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Funnily enough, it seems the old skull reconstruction is more in line with the possible neovenatorid interpretation? FunkMonk (talk) 12:33, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

13.3m

I think Deltadromeus is 13.3m and 3.5t. Source: http://dml.cmnh.org/2003Jul/msg00355.html

I calculated it using the femur and it also shows 13.3m and 3.5t. I guess that's how Mickey Mortimer calculated that. Dinosaur Fan (talk) 06:36, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Deltadromeus/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Augustios Paleo (talk · contribs) 00:41, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: IJReid (talk · contribs) 03:52, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

I am going to give this a big one-shot review covering everything and then we can see how it goes from there for successive revisions. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:52, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

All suggestions implemented but the thesis one. It is mentioned throughout recent literature and will be out soon. AFH (talk) 14:28, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

I am unable to find Kellermann's thesis to verify what is stated about it in Delcourt et al. (2025), and therefore I would still advise its removal. I would also advocate for the removal of the ornithomimosaur cladogram because it adds very little and increases due to the utter lack of resolution both page length, clutter, and bias towards an outlying result; the text already says as much as the phylogeny does. Other sources for an ornithomimosaur placement can all be traced back to Kellermann, including an abstract that may be more appropriate to include. It is the same analysis after all, just with improvements from iterative use. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:32, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Fixed AFH (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

• Discovery and Naming
  • I would link Gara Sbaa Formation here rather than in the lede
  • I don't see much need to separate the citations of paragraph 2 sentence 1 instead of just having both at the end of the sentence
  • I think the proper plural is "pedes"
  • "The distal (away from body) end of the ischium, a part of the pelvis, was unearthed and misidentified as being the distal part of the pubis.[1][5] This has been corrected." I would flip these sentences to say something like "A bone initially identified by Sereno and colleagues as the end of a pubis was later reidentified as the end of an ischium, another pelvic bone, by [authorship]" or something similar
  • "discovery of rostral teeth of the sawskate Onchopristis and crocodyliform teeth, two aquatic taxa, near the skeleton" feels cleaner as "discovery of rostral of the sawskate Onchopristis and teeth of a crocodyliform, both aquatic taxa"
  • It is stated that Delta is both "change" and reference to the deltaic facies, so either one is wrong or it should say "Delta is also ..."
  • Some duplicate links (eg. pubis) that require more manual checking because they are alternative pluralizations
  • I don't think "proximal (towards the end of the body)" is very helpful because of how it breaks up the flow, specifying which end of the tibia is preserved is not super important
  • The citation [1] at the end of the list of material is redundant with the citation [1] at the end of the sentence
  • Standard is for citations to be numbered in order so [1][6][8] instead of [8][1][6]
  • ", and finally Deltadromeus by Sereno and colleagues." reads better as ", before being referred to Deltadromeus ..."
  • "All of the fossils known of Bahariasaurus, including those Sereno and colleagues referred to Deltadromeus, were destroyed in the Bombing of Munich during World War II, leaving the nature of Bahariasaurus mysterious." most of this is not relevant to Deltadromeus (until the next paragraph) so I would cut it down to "All of the fossils found by Stromer, including those referred to both Bahariasaurus and eventually Deltadromeus, were destroyed in the Bombing of Munich during World War II."
  • "confidently referable to Deltadromeus" might be better as "for which the name Deltadromeus can be unambiguously used."
  • "Deltadromeus'" genus names are both singular and plural so the apostrophe is not needed IMO

• Description
  • "In 2001, Australian researcher Frank Seebacher" I would reframe this to talk about the "holotype individual", the topic of the article, before the australian researcher
  • "These referred specimens, if legitimate," the specimens are legitimate, it is the referral which is questionable, so "These specimens, if the referral to Deltadromeus is validated,"
  • "approximately the size of" should be length, since size can also mean mass
  • Is a "Postcrania" subsection worth it since there is nothing else?
  • "as reduced in other genera like Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus" Allosaurus is already mentioned so "as reduced as in that genus or others like Tyrannosaurus"
  • "relatively proximodistally (towards-away body) short deltopectoral crest that only spans 1/4 of the total length of the humerus" since comparison to the length of the humerus is made I would consider specifying "proximodistally" unnecessary since it disrupts flow
  • Gualicho hasn't been mentioned up til now so maybe say that its a potential relative
  • The acromion process really isn't part of the "shoulder joint" aka glenoid so I would just remove those brackets, it is linked
  • Some typos (eg. acormion)
  • "but these blades are straight in many" we are comparing tapering to straightness which are different metrics?
  • "dorsoventrally (top-bottom) compressed" another situation where brackets don't help, since top and bottom are both relative directions
  • "As for the femur," I don't like this sentence introduction
  • Another instance of what I consider unnecessary pluralization of the genus name
  • "as in noasaurids" surely they don't also have the exact same number?
  • Gualicho should be linked at first mention and only then

• Classification
  • Why not just say "in 1996" instead of bracketing the year
  • Nothing between 1996 and 2016?
  • Why not say "In their 2016 description of Gualicho ..."
  • "Since then, Gualicho has repeatedly been found to be a member of Coelurosauria,[21] whereas most phylogenetic analyses find Deltadromeus in Ceratosauria.[6]" this is problematic since it synthesizes sources that probably don't say Delta is not a relative of Gualicho. Saying "some studies find Delta as a ceratosaur, but didn't assess Gualicho" is less problematic.
  • Is Bahariasauridae not linked or redirected to anything?
  • I don't love using small illustrations in cladograms when they aren't all aligned and in the same lateral view, it may give an issue at FA for sourcing
  • The year of Delcourt and colleagues has already been mentioned, remove the bracketed repeat
  • "as an unpublished masters thesis" I don't think this is a great source to include, I would just let the discussion given by Delcourt form the whole paragraph
  • Is it worth including a third cladogram when all it does is what the text says (Deltadromeus as an ornithomimosaur) and everything is unresolved?
  • Breaking it up into ceratosaur and avetheropod subsections is messing with the chronological flow of understanding what happened, I would rearrange it all to just be chronological (there is not much similar between being a neovenatorid and an ornithomimosaur anyways)
  • "without explanation" this is original synthesis
  • "incorrectly recognized as a indeterminate theropod pubis by Stromer" I would remove "incorrectly" as the reidentification is about reinterpretation not disproving

• Paleoenvironment
  • "fossil formations" not a formation, more of a "geologic unit"
  • "If the material assigned to Deltadromeus by Sereno and colleagues (1995) is from Deltadromeus,[1] its range would include Bahariya Formation. This would indicate that the distribution of Deltadromeus is similar to that of Spinosaurus,[34][35] though Spinosaurus' taxonomy and distribution too is debated.[36][19][37]" quite a lot of synthesis here, why is the range comparison to Spinosaurus even relevant?
  • "which despite suggestions that this is due to ecological, preservation, or other biases,[34][41] is supported by the fossil record.[6]" should be a comma after "which" and might be more neutral to say "can be supported"
  • "indicates that there was" again for neutrality "could have been"
  • "this, which found greater quantities of sizable, terrestrial animals" probably "this as there were greater ..."
  • "Deltadromeus/Bahariasaurus" can just use "and" since them being abelisauroids is not really dependent on their synonymy
  • "This is based on the herbivorous/omnivorous nature of Limusaurus and Berthasaura,[44][45][46]" I assume the herbivorous nature is also cited in the citation at the end of the sentence so all of these could just be moved to the end to avoid the appearance of synthesis
  • "and more" it feels neater to just say "and sandbars" since the "including" qualifier is already there

• Lede (doing this last since its meant to compile other sections)
  • Be sure the etymology reflects the article contents after the outcome of my suggestion above
  • "the holotype (name-bearing) specimen" specimen is redundant and brackets are not elegant, both can be removed
  • Why is it Kem Kem Group here but "beds" everywhere else?
  • Again, "longest" is not the same as "largest"; it should be the former
  • The wording can be simplified to just be "tail" etc rather than "caudal (tail)"
  • "a similar theropod with debated affinities," I'm not sure what this is in reference to
  • "The most mainstream idea is that it is a ceratosaur of some kind," mainstream is a difficult word to justify here, I would remove any presumption of correctness entirely
  • "have stated" it feels more neutral to say "have suggested"
  • "lived around the same interval as Deltadromeus." might be easier to say "time and region" rather than "interval"
  • "This hypothesis is also under discussion." remove
  • Phylogenetic bracketing hasn't been used elsewhere, either remove the reference or incorporate it into the main body

• Images and sources
  • I have no issues with any of the images used or arrangement, beyond the cladogram ones mentioned above
  • "size of a lost femur (B)" has a specimen number been used for this femur in the text so it can be easier to match with the writing?
  • Some spot checking of common issues:
    • Etymology and content of Sereno et al (1996) lines up
    • Use of Bahariasauridae and content of Motta et al (2016) lines up (something I thought may have been missing)
    • Herbivory and interpretations of Cau and Paterna (2025) match, though "phylogenetic bracketing" is not used (suggested to remove above already)

Flyby comment: three sets of references are duplicates. These are 1 and 34, 2 and 29, and 6 and 19. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:04, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Finished this fix, any other notes? AFH (talk) 18:24, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I believe it is good to pass IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:09, 7 March 2026 (UTC)