Deinocheirus mirificus
I think best way to describe this critter is bizarre. Deinocheirus mirificus’ horrible hands pointed the way towards a beast of awesomely epic proportions, but not—at least initially—the bizarroid aspect of the whole animal.
This dinosaur, known at first only from horribly huge and clawed hands, proved to be an amazing and surprising creature. While it was known to be an ornithomimosaur, the true extent of its bizarreness wasn’t uncovered until the rest of D. mirificus was discovered — sans skull — from a dig site in Mongolia in 2009. The looted skull actually turned up later via black market activity, and the fossil was eventually sent back to Mongolia in 2014.
Look at that face. A beak of bizarre if I ever saw/sketched one. A mightily-armed and clawed dinosaur without any teeth. It is an amazing find, and I attended the presentation at SVP in 2013, which has led to a minor obsession with the beast, as well as the inescapable conclusion that theropods are weird.
