Scientists from Chile and the University of Texas, United States, found that Megaraptores were the dominant dinosaurs among the carnivores that inhabited Chilean Patagonia more than 70 million years ago.
According to the report published on the website of Bio Bio Chile, Knowing the dominant species of the Cretaceous was the last piece of information that needed to be identified. in the ecosystem formed near Torres del Paine, in the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic Region
For Chile, experts from the University of Chile, the University of Concepción, the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and the National Museum of Natural History participated, who based themselves on fossil pieces recovered in the sector of the Las Chinas river valley in paleontological campaigns carried out between 2016 and 2020.
These remains are teeth and postcranial bone remains that confirm that there was a diverse community of carnivorous theropods, which lived there between 66 and 75 million years ago with a large river delta and abundant vegetation.
What did megaraptors look like?
Jared Amudeo, a researcher at the Paleontological Network of the University of Chile, detailed what the megaraptors looked like in Patagonia: “The main characteristic of its general morphology is that megaraptors have elongated skulls and large arms with powerful claws”.
The report adds that megaraptors they were predators similar to tyrannosauroids and could have reached between six and 10 meters in length and weighed over a ton.
Amudeo also spoke of the dental remains: “The distal part of the teeth, which face the back of the snout, have many serrations, which are like a knife that is used to cut meat, and which in the mesial part it does not have. That is one of the main characteristics that megaraptorids have”.
