What was a Megaraptor?

About Megaraptor:

• Megaraptor was a large theropod of the Cretaceous Period, 84 to 65 mya.
• megaraptors possessed strong arms that wielded sickle-like claws that could inflict fatal wounds on prey, along with a more lightly built skull and jaws studded with smaller teeth.
• They also had air-filled, bird-like bones.
• Megaraptor was about 25–26 feet (7.5–8 meters) long.
• Incomplete Megaraptor remains were found in 1996 in Northwest Patagonia, Argentina, by paleontologist Fernando E. Novas. Novas named it in 1998.

Cretaceous Period:

• The Cretaceous Period, in geologic time, is the last of the three periods of the Mesozoic Era.
• The Cretaceous began 145.0 million years ago and ended 66 million years ago.
• It followed the Jurassic Period and was succeeded by the Paleogene Period.

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What is a Theropod?

• This group includes all the known carnivorous dinosaurs as well as the birds.
• They have a carnivorous dentition and large, recurved claws on the fingers.
• They have a distinctive joint in the lower jaw.

Patagonian Region:

• It is a sparsely populated region located at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina and Chile.
• The region comprises the southern section of the Andes mountains as well as the deserts, steppes and grasslands east of this southern portion of the Andes.
• Patagonia has two coasts; a western one towards the Pacific Ocean and an eastern one towards the Atlantic Ocean.

Q1) What is Paleontology?

Paleontology is the scientific study of prehistoric life and the history of the Earth’s organisms.

Source: Four dinosaur species found in Chilean valley for first time: Study