Paleontologists have unearthed a well-preserved, almost complete left frontal (part of the skull roof) of a previously unknown species of megaraptorid dinosaur in the upper Strzelecki Group (earliest Cretaceous) of Victoria, Australia. The new specimen provides limited support for the hypothesis that megaraptorid dinosaurs might have originated in Australia.
Megaraptoridae is a family of theropods that lived in different regions of Gondwana during the Cretaceous period.
These carnivorous dinosaurs had large hand claws and robust forelimbs, which were usually reduced in size in other large theropods.
“The Australian Cretaceous non-avian theropod record is poorly understood when compared with that of most other continents, as it almost exclusively comprises isolated postcranial remains,” Monash University paleontologist Jake Kotevski and his colleagues wrote in their paper.
“Only four specimens described to date comprise associations of multiple elements: a pair of theropod pubic bones from the lower Albian Eumeralla Formation; the megaraptorid dubbed ‘Lightning Claw’ from the Cenomanian Griman Creek Formation; and an unnamed megaraptorid and the holotype specimen of Australovenator wintonensis from the Cenomanian Winton Formation.”
“Three of these four specimens have been referred to the Megaraptoridae, the group of theropods to which the vast majority of diagnostic theropod remains in Australian mid-Cretaceous dinosaur assemblages can be referred.”
The new megaraptorid specimen was unearthed at the locality of Shack Bay of the Lower Cretaceous upper Strzelecki Group (informally known as the Wonthaggi Formation) in Victoria, Australia.
The find was made by Michael Cleeland of the volunteer organization Dinosaur Dreaming in 2007.
The fossil dates back 120 million years old and improves the limited record of Cretaceous Australian theropod skull remains.
It also provides limited support for the hypothesis that Megaraptoridae might have originated…
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