Outline: a typical theropod
Vectaerovenator
"Wight air-filled hunter"
- Lived
- 120 to 113 million years ago, Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Group
- Theropods
- Found in
- United Kingdom
- Named by
- Barker et al. 2020
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
115 million years ago
Field notes
About Vectaerovenator
What it was like
Vectaerovenator was a two-legged predator known from four backbones. The bones are full of air spaces, like those of birds, which gave it its name. It may have been several meters long.
Its world
It lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now England. Its bones come from the Ferruginous Sands, which formed in the sea, so its body probably washed out from land. The armored Polacanthus lived in the region.
How it was found
Barker and colleagues named it in 2020. The bones were found on a beach by members of the public.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Tetanurae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: C. T. Barker, D. Naish, and C. E. Clarkin, P. Farrell, G. Hullmann, J. Lockyer, P. Schneider, R. K. C. Ward, NJ Gostling. 2020. A highly pneumatic middle Cretaceous theropod from the British Lower Greensand. Papers in Palaeontology