Kuru

Before formal naming or identification, this organism was known as the following on this wiki:
**"Airakoraptor"**

## Statistics

### Diet

Carnivorous

*Kuru* is an extinct genus of velociraptorine dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived in Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous.

## History

*K. kulla* was discovered on July 5, 1991 in Khulsan, Barun Goyot Formation on an American-Mongolian expedition. This formation is difficult to date, but appears to be intermediate of the Campanian Djadochta Formation and the Maastrichtian Nemegt Formation. It and *Shri* were found within 1 day of each other. The holotype was once leaked as "Airakoraptor", an informal name.

## Description

 File:Kuru skeletal.png
The holotype is MPC-D 100/981 (prev. IGM 100/981), which includes a right premaxilla and lacrimal, a right mandible, 14 presacrals, 3 isolate caudals and fragmented fore left forelimb and hindlimb. Each element has a different preservational quality, but the skeleton is over more heavily weathered than IGM 100/980 (*Shri*). Notably. a second posterior surangular foramen, a lacking postorbital boss, a postorbital hornlet and anteriorly-displaced pleurocoels of the dorsals among others distinguish this taxon. It was not referred to any existing taxa because it seems distinct enough and the evidence to do so is slim.

## Classification

A fourth trochanter, elongate dorsal centra and an enlarged primary surangular foramen finds this taxon as sister to *Adasaurus*. Typically, this taxon would be lumped into the most similar taxon like how many velociraptorines like *Tsagaan* were once lumped into *Velociraptor*. They recover the following classification for Velociraptorinae:

"Airakoraptor" was informally leaked by Perle et al. (1999) in a citation of an unreleased paper reportedly named "Morphology Dromaeosaurian dinosaur-Airakoraptor from the upper cretaceous of Mongolia". The actual title for this publication is likely "New dromaeosaur material from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia", but the name still has no verification. It may be named from three specimens; of which, one is not given an ID. One of them is IGM 100/981 of the Khulsan, which is likely distinct from *Velociraptor*. It was presumed to mean "Kumis thief} after airak or airag by Napoli et al. (2021). The surangular of IGM 100/981 was described alongside the naming of *Tsagaan* and confused for IGM 100/3503 (the Zos Wash specimen) in 1998. In 2021, "Airakoraptor" was presumed to be a nickname for ***Kuru***, possibly meaning "Kumis thief".

## Paleoecology

It and *Shri* were contemporaneous. Often, people tend to assume a single prehistoric ecosystem could not support 2 or more animals of similar size and niche. However, Napoli et al. (2021) explore how this is incorrect. They note many *Panthera* are virtually indistinguishable by their skeleton alone, like *Kuru* and *Shri*, and have overlapped territories for much of history until human pressure began to segregate populations. It and *Shri* are the first eudromaeosaurs to be named from the same formation

## References

* https://bioone.org/journals/american-museum-novitates/volume-2021/issue-3982/3982.1/A-New-Dromaeosaurid-Dinosauria-Coelurosauria-from-Khulsan-Central-Mongolia/10.1206/3982.1.short?tab=ArticleLink\
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru\_kulla