page_title: Elopteryx
section_title: Later finds
hierarchical_section_title: Elopteryx / History of discovery and naming / Later finds
caption_attribution_description: English: Stamps of Romania, 2005
context_page_description: Elopteryx is a genus of, perhaps troodontid, maniraptoran theropod dinosaur based on fragmentary fossils found in late Cretaceous Period rocks of Romania. The single species, Elopteryx nopcsai, is known only from very incomplete material, and therefore is considered a nomen dubium by most paleontologists.
context_section_description: In 1975, the distal tibiotarsi BMNH A1588 and BMNH A1528, together with BMNH A4359, were by Colin James Oliver Harrison and Cyril Alexander Walker removed from Elopteryx, redescribed as Bradycneme draculae and Heptasteornis andrewsi respectively, and used to establish a supposed family of gigantic two metre tall owls, the Bradycnemidae. In 1978 Brodkorb had changed his opinion after the supposed Elopteryx material was divided among three species in total, and was actually the first scholar in modern times to suggest that these Mesozoic bones were not of birds but of non-avian dinosaurs.
  In 1981, Dan Grigorescu and Eugen Kessler stated that Elopteryx was a non-avian coelurosaurian dinosaur. They also referred a supposed distal femur (FGGUB R.351) to Elopteryx, but this was eventually identified as a hadrosauroid distal metatarsal.
  In 1992, it was proposed by Jean Le Loeuff e.a. that Bradycneme and Heptasteornis should be synonymized with E. nopcsai again, and a femur (MDE-D203), an anterior dorsal vertebra (MDE-D01), a posterior sacral vertebra (MDE collection, unnumbered) and some dorsal rib fragments from the Jurassic Grès à Reptiles formation of France were described as an indeterminate species of Elopteryx; that study placed all this material in the Dromaeosauridae or a family or subfamily (Elopteryginae) very close to these. The vertebrae were in 1998 separated again and assigned to a new dromaeosaurid, Variraptor mechinorum. The French femur is similar in general appearance to the Elopteryx type but it differs in diagnostic traits, e.g. lacking a fourth trochanter. Also, neither the ribs nor the tibiotarsi can be compared to the type specimen of Elopteryx, there being no overlapping material.
  In 2005, by Kessler yet another (distal) femur piece, FGGUB R.1957, has been placed with Elopteryx on the basis of the bone texture.
caption: Elopteryx nopcsai on 2005 Romanian stamp
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