Outline: a typical theropod
Austrocheirus
"southern hand"
Type species Austrocheirus isasii
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Group
- Theropods, Noasauridae
- Found in
- Argentina
- Named by
- Ezcurra et al. 2010
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Austrocheirus
What it was like
Austrocheirus was a meat eater known from parts of the hand, lower legs and feet. It belongs to the noasaurids, a family of often small, slender hunters, though Austrocheirus was probably larger than most.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now southern Argentina. Its bones come from the Cerro Fortaleza Formation, where it shared the land with the giant titanosaurs Dreadnoughtus and Puertasaurus and the megaraptor Orkoraptor.
How it was found
Ezcurra and colleagues named Austrocheirus in 2010, from a single find.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Noasauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: M. D. Ezcurra, F. L. Agnolin, and F. E. Novas. 2010. An abelisauroid dinosaur with a non-atrophied manus from the Late Cretaceous Pari Aike Formation of southern Patagonia. Zootaxa 2450:1-25