Saltriovenator

What it was like

Saltriovenator was a large meat eater from the Early Jurassic, one of the biggest theropods known from that time. It is known only from scattered bones, among them parts of the arm and hand, which suggest a large, powerful two-legged hunter.

It belongs to the ceratosaurs, the group that later included Ceratosaurus.

Its world

It lived about 200 to 193 million years ago, in the Early Jurassic, in what is now Italy. Its bones were found in marine limestone of the Saltrio Formation, which means its body was washed out to sea before it became a fossil.

How it was found

Dal Sasso and colleagues named Saltriovenator zanellai in 2018. The bones had been found in a quarry many years earlier, and several show bite marks from sea creatures that fed on the carcass.