Meraxes

What it was like

Meraxes was a large carcharodontosaurid predator, closely related to Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. Its skeleton is unusually complete for such a large theropod, preserving much of the skull, spine, and limbs. One striking feature is how small and short its arms were relative to its body size, a trait it shares, independently, with the much later Tyrannosaurus rex. Like other giant theropods, it probably relied on a powerful skull and a strong bite, rather than its arms, to bring down prey.

Its world

Meraxes lived in what is now Argentina. Its bones come from lower levels of the Huincul Formation. Recent radiometric dating supports an Early Cretaceous age for these rocks, revising the Late Cretaceous age used in older studies.

Giganotosaurus comes from older rocks in the region, while Mapusaurus comes from younger Huincul layers. Their fossils record a succession of large predators rather than a single shared hunting ground.

How it was found

Canale and colleagues named Meraxes in 2022, based on a single, well preserved skeleton, a rare find for a predator of this size. The type species is Meraxes gigas. The genus is named after a dragon from a work of fantasy fiction, following a tradition of naming fierce predatory dinosaurs after mythical monsters.