Prof’s find continues to shed light on dinos’ lives
More clues to evolutionary origins offered
A carnivorous dinosaur discovered by one of the world’s most renowned vertebrate paleontologists continues to reveal new secrets 15 years after it was first unearthed in Patagonia.
The new species of megaraptorid was excavated in Argentina by a team led by University of Alberta professor and Canada Research chair in Paleobiology Philip Currie and Rodolfo Coria from Argentina’s Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas in a region dubbed “the South American equivalent of Drumheller.”
In a new study published Wednesday in open-access journal PLOS ONE, Currie and Coria said that Murusraptor barrosaensis may help discern the evolutionary origins of the megaraptorid group.
“A lot of people have been waiting for this paper,” Currie, who was conducting field work and unavailable for an interview, said in a news release.
“When you have most of the skeleton, it takes a long time to do all the work on it.
“It turns out this animal is related to Megaraptor, found only 30 kilometres away in a different rock formation.
“The upshot was the more we looked, we could test whether Megaraptor was a dromaeosaur, which it isn’t in the strict sense, and what was thought to be the foot claws — the big can-opener claw of a dromaeosaur or raptor — were actually from the hands.”
Currie said the specimen, not yet an adult, was roughly eight metres long when alive — and was still growing.
“This is a super-cool specimen from a very enigmatic family of big dinosaurs,” Currie said.
“Because we have most of the skeleton in a single entity, it really helps consolidate their relationships to other animals.”
This is a super-cool specimen from a very enigmatic family of big dinosaurs.