Fossil kept in drawer for a century sheds light on enigmatic meat-eating dinosaurs

The partial skull of a tiger-sized predator that prowled what is now the Isle of Wight off England’s southern coast about 120 million years ago is giving scientists a better understanding of an enigmatic group of meat-eating dinosaurs known for running down prey and ripping them apart with massive hand claws.

Researchers said the fossil belongs to a species they have named Invictibellatrix amberina, an early member of the lineage of Cretaceous Period carnivorous dinosaurs called megaraptorans. Invictibellatrix adds to the knowledge of skull anatomy among early megaraptorans and, being the first one known from Europe, helps show how the group spread globally.

Invictibellatrix is one of the smallest megaraptorans. Based on fossils of closely related megaraptorans, the researchers estimated that Invictibellatrix was about 16 feet long, with the weight of a large tiger. Its body may have been covered in filament-like feathers, they said.

Megaraptorans were part of the group called theropods that spans all the meat-eating dinosaurs.

“Megaraptorans are very unique among theropods because they have relatively small and slender heads but had long and strong arms with massive hand claws as well as very lightly built skeletons,” said Cassius Morrison, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business