Paleontologists from the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences announced on May 18 that they had found a fossil skeleton dating back 70 million years of a carnivorous megaraptor dinosaur.
Project members of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences clean fossilized megaraptor dinosaurs in El Calafate, Santa Cruz, Argentina on March 15, 2020 – Photo: REUTERS
This could be the fossil of one of the last carnivorous dinosaurs to live on earth.
This fossil was discovered in Santa Cruz province, southern Argentina in mid-March 2020.
After analyzing the 10-meter-long fossil, experts confirmed they were in contact with a part of a predatory dinosaur from the end of the “age of the dinosaurs”
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Fernando Novas, the paleontologist in charge of the project, told Reuters news agency: “65 million years ago, the extinction happened with the dinosaurs. So, at this time, the fossil of the new megaraptor discovered for allows us to study one of the last representatives of this group”.
Federico Brisson, project member of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, cleans fossilized remains of a megaraptor dinosaur in El Calafate, Santa Cruz, Argentina on March 15, 2020 – Photo: REUTERS
Unlike the Tyrannosaurus rex, the megaraptors had a slimmer body for optimum speed, a long tail for balance, and muscular but slender legs for taking long strides.
Megaraptor is the main genus of dinosaur in the family Megaraptoridae, a large theropod that lived in Argentina during the late Cretaceous period 85-90 million years ago, officially described in 1998. Their only known fossil is a sickle-shaped claw up to 37cm long on the forelimbs.
Reconstructed image of a megaraptor
This carnivorous dinosaur can be 8m long, 2.2m high and weigh 1-2 tons. They can run up to 50km/h.
The origin of Megaraptor is still controversial today. They are not believed to be a true Raptor but are closer to Allosaurus and Neovenator. There is even a theory that they were just adult versions of the other smaller South American carnivorous dinosaur Unenlagia.
