100-Year-Old Fossil Yields Europe’s First Definitive Megaraptor, a 4-Meter New Species
Updated
Updated · blue News | Romandie · Oct 14
100-Year-Old Fossil Yields Europe’s First Definitive Megaraptor, a 4-Meter New Species
3 articles · Updated · blue News | Romandie · Oct 14
Summary
A skull fossil found on the Isle of Wight in 1924 and left unrecognized in a museum drawer for nearly 100 years has now been identified as Invictibellatrix amberina, a new early megaraptor species.
CT scans of the fossilized braincase and 3D modeling revealed a distinctive mix of features—including an oval spinal-cord opening and a bony crest—that let researchers place it within Megaraptoridae.
The predator was estimated at 3 to 4 meters long, likely feathered, and armed with 10 to 20 centimeter curved claws used to hunt smaller dinosaurs, lizards and mammals.
The find gives Europe its first definitive megaraptor and helps close a gap in the group’s history, supporting the idea that megaraptors were more widespread across early Cretaceous Eurasia before later flourishing in Gondwana.