it put the (wrong) ones in Jurassic Park to shame

Paleontologists have discovered theimprint of a gigantic raptorwith an estimated length of approx 5 meters. This dinosaurwhich lived between 100 and 66 million years ago, was therefore much bigger of the fearsome velociraptor seen in the film saga of Jurassic Park inspired by the book by Michael Chricton, which in turn were larger than the true velociraptors that lived in the Cretaceous. These dinosaurs deinonychosaurs closely related to the birds and characterized by a lethal and enormous claw on the second toe, in fact, they reached at most the size of a turkey with a long tail; in the film by Steven Spielberg and later gods were inserted Deinonychus (without quills and feathers in the vast majority of films), dinosaurs theropods similar to velociraptors, but much larger. Their name was changed to velociraptor simply because the latter is more “threatening”. Now scientists have discovered a truly scary “megaraptor,” which will likely end up in future iterations of the saga with i large extinct reptiles.

A Chinese and American research team led by scientists from the University of Geological Sciences of China, who collaborated closely with colleagues from various institutes, discovered and described the footprints of the gigantic raptor. Among those involved are the School of Life Sciences at Xiamen University, the “Dinosaur Trackers” research group at the University of Colorado Denver, the College of Charleston and the University of Queensland. The researchers, coordinated by Professor Lida Longxianglocated in the heart of the basin Shanghang and dating back to the late period Cretaceous period (the last of the Mesozoic before the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, triggered byasteroid chicxulub). One of the two, 11 centimeters long, belongs to a Velociraptorichnusa small theropod with an estimated size of about 1 meter, while the second, well 36 centimetresto a completely new species that paleontologists have decided to name Fujianipus yingliangi.

From the dimensions of the footprints it is possible to calculate the hip height of a raptor, which in this case, according to experts, was approximately 1.8 meters, like a person considered tall. From this value we can deduce that of the total length (from the “snout” to the tip of the tail), based on comparisons with the fossil remains of other dinosaurs belonging to the same taxonomic group. As indicated, this gigantic raptor was a full 5 meters long, a colossus compared to the smaller but still deadly Deinonychus called velociraptors in Jurassic Park. “When people think of raptor dinosaurs, they most likely think of the ones from the Jurassic Park films: aggressive, muscular, human-sized hunters,” Dr. Anthony Romillo, a paleontologist at the University of California’s Dinosaur Lab, said in a press release. Queensland’s and co-authored the study. “But these tracks were left by a much more slender and intelligent group of the Velociraptor family known as Troodontidae. This raptor was about 5 meters long with 1.8 meter long legs, far exceeding the size of the raptors depicted in Jurassic Park Imagine something like that coming at you at full speed!”, commented the scientist.

The dimensions of this “megaraptor” are comparable to those of two others previously discovered, theAustroraptor and it Utahraptor. According to experts, gigantism in this group of theropod dinosaurs (carnivorous bipeds) bird-like species evolved independently a few times into the major known lineages, namely Eudromaeosauria, Unenlagiidae, and Troodontidae. The new species Fujianipus yingliangi it would belong to the latter family, which lived between Asia and North America until the end of the Cretaceous. The researchers, probing the paleontological site of Longxiang, where there are a dozen footprints of deinonychosaurs, hope to also find the fossil remains of the newly discovered “megaraptor”, a predator that tens of millions of years ago terrorized herbivores in what it is present-day China. The details of the research “Deinonychosaur trackways in southeastern China record a possible giant troodontid” were published in the scientific journal iScience Cell-Press.