Outline: a typical theropod
Riparovenator
"riverbank hunter"
Type species Riparovenator milnerae
- Lived
- 126 to 121 million years ago, Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Group
- Theropods, Spinosauridae
- Found in
- United Kingdom
- Named by
- Barker et al. 2021
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
125 million years ago
Field notes
About Riparovenator
What it was like
Riparovenator was a spinosaur, a large predator with a long, narrow, crocodile-like snout. It was a close relative of Baryonyx. Like it, it probably caught fish as well as other prey near rivers.
Its world
It lived in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now England. It comes from the Wessex Formation, a land of rivers and floodplains shared with Iguanodon, Neovenator, the armored Polacanthus and the small plant eater Hypsilophodon.
How it was found
Barker and colleagues named Riparovenator in 2021. The type species is Riparovenator milnerae. It was described along with another spinosaur from the same rocks, Ceratosuchops.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Spinosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: C. T. Barker, D. W. E. Hone, and D. Naish, A. Cau, J. A. F. Lockwood, B. Foster, C. E. Clarkin, P. Schneider, N. J. Gostling. 2021. New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae. Scientific Reports 11:19340:1-16