Garudimimus

Garudimimus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,98–83 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Skull pre (left) and post (right) reconstruction
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Theropoda
Clade:	†Ornithomimosauria
Family:	†Deinocheiridae
Genus:	†Garudimimus Barsbold, 1981
Species:	†G. brevipes
Binomial name
Garudimimus brevipes Barsbold, 1981

Garudimimus ("Garuda mimic") is a basal ornithomimosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia.

In 1981, during a Soviet-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi Desert, a theropod skeleton was discovered at Baishin Tsav in Ömnögovi Province. The same year this specimen was named and described by Rinchen Barsbold as the type species Garudimimus brevipes. The generic name combines a reference to the Garuda, winged creatures from Mongolian Buddhist mythology, with a Latin mimus, "mimic". The specific name is derived from Latin brevis, "short", and pes, "foot", referring to the short metatarsus.

The holotype specimen, GIN 100/13, was uncovered in sediments of the Upper Cretaceous Bayan Shireh Formation the stratification of which is uncertain; its possible age ranges from the Cenomanian to the Campanian. It consists of a rather complete and articulated skeleton including the skull but lacking the shoulder girdle, forelimbs and tail end, of a subadult individual. The specimen is today usually seen as the only fossil known of Garudimimus, though Philip J. Currie once claimed that part of the Archaeornithomimus material belonged to Garudimimus. The skeleton was for the first time described in detail in works by Yoshitsugu Kobayashi from 2004 and 2005.