Bradycneme is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of theropod dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

 from the early Maastrichtian

Maastrichtian

The Maastrichtian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the latest age or upper stage of the Late Cretaceous epoch or Upper Cretaceous series, the Cretaceous period or system, and of the Mesozoic era or erathem. It spanned from 70.6 ± 0.6 Ma to 65.5 ± 0.3 Ma...

-age Upper Cretaceous Sânpetru Formation

Sânpetru Formation

The Sânpetru Formation is a Mesozoic geologic formation. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation. It is located near Sânpetru village, part of Sântămăria-Orlea commune.-Ornithischians:-Sauropods:-Theropods:...

 of the Haţeg Basin

Hateg

Hațeg is a town in Hunedoara County, Romania with a population of 12,507. Three villages are administered by the town: Nălațvad, Silvașu de Jos and Silvașu de Sus.Țara Hațegului is the region around Hațeg town...

, Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. It is known only from a partial right lower leg (specimen BMNH

BMNH

BMNH may refer to:*British Museum of Natural History, commonly known as Natural History Museum, in London, the United Kingdom*Beijing Museum of Natural History, in Beijing, China...

 A1588), which its describers believed came from a giant owl

Owl

Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...

.

History

Harrison and Walker described two "bradycnemids" from Romania in 1975: B. draculae and Heptasteornis andrewsi. These specimens had initially been assigned to the supposed pelecaniform bird Elopteryx nopcsai. Bradycneme means "ponderous leg", from Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 bradys (βραδύς) "slow, ponderous" + kneme (κνήμη) "leg", as the holotype

Holotype

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

 would be very stout if the animal had been an owl. The species name draculae is from Romanian dracul.

Starting with Pierce Brodkorb

Pierce Brodkorb

Pierce Brodkorb , also stated as William Pierce Brodkorb, was an American ornithologist and paleontologist....

, the specimens were soon compared to small theropod dinosaurs. These three genera Bradycneme, Elopteryx and Heptasteornis have been synonymized, split, and reassessed numerous times since then in part because of the fragmentary nature of the remains; there exist three proximal femora and three distal tibiotarsi, which may belong to one, two or three species. Usually, at least one of them is considered to be a troodontid.

In the most recent assessments, Bradycneme and Heptasteornis were found to be the same and most likely troodontids in one study, but Darren Naish

Darren Naish

Darren Naish is a vertebrate palaeontologist and science writer. He obtained a geology degree at the University of Southampton and later studied vertebrate palaeontology under British palaeontologist David Martill at the University of Portsmouth, where he obtained both an M. Phil...

 did not follow the synonymy and found Heptasteornis to be an alvarezsaurid. Cladistic analysis is not too well-suited to assess the placement of such a fragmentary fossil, and finds Bradycneme to be implaceable among Maniraptora

Maniraptora

Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs which includes the birds and the dinosaurs that were more closely related to them than to Ornithomimus velox. It contains the major subgroups Avialae, Deinonychosauria, Oviraptorosauria and Therizinosauria. Ornitholestes and the Alvarezsauroidea...

, but probably different from Heptasteornis which seems to belong into the Parvicursorinae subfamily of alvarezsaurids. In a 2011 classification, Tom Holtz assigned Bradycneme to the alvareszauridae, along with Heptasteornis.