Chinese Ostriches

In the realm of dinosaurs that you may or may not need to have as species are the ornithomimids. What we mean by that is that there are so many species spread over the world in this family that are highly similar in morphology that it leads one to wonder if the multitude of species that have been named within the family are really distinct species. The geographically isolated members of the family probably constitute legitimate speciation, such as the "Chinese bird mimic" Sinornithomimus dongi. As happens often in Chinese paleontology of late, the dinosaur was named after its 1997 finder, a man named Dong Zhiming.  The animal was described in 2003 by Yoshitsugu Kobayashi and Lu Jungchang and the holotype, a subadult individual within a larger herd group, is known as IVP-V11797-10. It is not a glamorous name for a running machine with a lot of leg power, but it will do for the time being at least; probably longer since paleontologists give their fossils names much earlier in the recovery process it appears.

Type specimen skull: Yoshitsugu Kobayashi and Jun-Chang Lü