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Book Fauna Palaestina 4 Year 2014 By Prof Dr Norman Ali Bassam Khalaf von Jaffa ISBN 978-9950-383-77-7

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footprints of some dinosaurs were found, which belong to a group of<br />

agile animals, running on their hind limbs, which their forelimbs were<br />

relatively very small, never used for locomotion, but rather helped then<br />

to grasp food or prey. The late <strong>Prof</strong>. Moshe Avnimelech from<br />

the Hebrew University of Jerusalem identified those footprints as<br />

belonging to the genus Struthiomimus (=ostrich-like). Indeed, the<br />

reconstruction of the animal (exhibited in the backyard of<br />

the department of Geology in the Hebrew University) shows a close<br />

artificial similarity with ostriches and their capability for a high-speed<br />

locomotion. Yet, contrary with all other birds, its body was covered<br />

with horny scales, showed no teeth in its jaws, which was covered with<br />

a horny sharp sheath and fed on leaves. The Beit Zeit dinosaur was<br />

relatively small (150 kg, 4 meters long) (Tsrenov).<br />

Related species of the same age were described from North America<br />

and Mongolia. Until now, no dinosaur bones were found in Palestine,<br />

but the footprints of Beit Zeit show that a band of this species ran about<br />

the shoreline of the old Tethys Ocean which, at that time, covered the<br />

coasts of the Middle East (Tsrenov).<br />

Beit Zeit Dinosaurs. Israeli Stamps <strong>Book</strong>let.<br />

http://www.paleophilatelie.eu/images/variations/israel_2000_booklet.jpg<br />

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