Orkoraptor

What it was like

Orkoraptor was a medium-sized meat eater known only from scattered pieces: bits of the skull, some teeth, tail bones and part of a shin bone. Its teeth were unusual, with shapes more like those of much smaller hunters.

Its world

It lived about 84 to 72 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now southern Argentina. Its bones come from the Cerro Fortaleza Formation, where giant titanosaurs such as Dreadnoughtus and Puertasaurus lived. It is one of the most southerly meat-eating dinosaurs known from South America.

How it was found

Novas and colleagues named Orkoraptor in 2008. At first they placed it among the small, bird-like coelurosaurs, but later studies grouped it with the megaraptors, big-clawed hunters such as Megaraptor and Aerosteon.