Pronounced - meg-a-RAP-tor Named By - Fernando E. Novas When Named - 1998 |
DIET: |
Carnivore (meat-eater) |
SIZE: |
Length - 20-26 feet (6-8 m) long Height - roughly 6 ft (2 m) tall at the hips Weight
- ? |
WHEN IT LIVED: |
Late Cretaceous period, about 90-84 million years ago |
WHERE IT LIVED: |
Fossils have been found in the Rio Neuquen Rock Formation, Sierra del Portezuelo, Province of Neuquen, Argentina,
South America. |
FOSSILS: |
Megaraptor remains were found in 1996 in Northwest Patagonia, Argentina, by paleontologist Fernando E. Novas.
Only a few toe and leg bones have been found, including a sickle-claw 14 inch (35 cm) long. |
CLASSIFICATION: |
- Kingdom Animalia (animals)
- Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
- Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
- Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
- Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
- Tetanura - advanced theropods with three fingers
- Infraorder Coelurosauria - lightly-built fast-running predators with hollow bones and large brains
- Family Deinonychosauria (dromaeosaurids and their ancestors) - sickle-clawed predators
- Genus Megaraptor
- Species M. namunhuaiquii (type species named by Novas, 1998)
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INTERESTING FACTS: |
Megaraptor was a large, terrifying late Cretaceous predator with two enormous, sickle-like toe claws . It
was a huge, lightly built, fast-moving, agile, bipedal (walked on two legs), bird-like dinosaur. It had a curved, flexible
neck, and a big head with sharp, serrated teeth in very powerful jaws.
The second toe on each foot had a 14 inch (35 cm) sickle-like claw and the other toes had smaller claws. When alive, this
claw would have been sheathed in a horny, keratinous material much like our fingernails, making the claw even bigger, longer
and sharper. |
LINKS: |
A detailed page on Megaraptor.
A Megaraptor coloring/information printout |
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