The discovery of an apex-predator dinosaur that measured three stories from nose to tail and eviscerated its prey with sharp, curved claws was announced by Argentine paleontologists.
Mauro Aranciaga, a paleontologist, told Agence France-Presse that the six-ton megaraptor ripped to shreds smaller dinosaurs that it fed on before digging into their guts.
Aranciaga said that it would have been apex predator of its time.
The Maip macrothorax fossils are compared by Novas. There is a picture of Juan Mabromata.
The first part is derived from a mythical figure of the Aonikenk people.
The character was associated with the shadow of the death and the cold wind in the mountains.
The second part refers to the enormous expanse of the creature's chest.
Aranciaga's team said the monster was larger than any previously discovered type of megaraptor.
It lived in a tropical forest for 70 million years before the glaciers of the Andes mountain range.
The fossils of Maip macrothorax are checked by the researchers. There is a picture of Juan Mabromata.
The killer reptile had two sharp, curved claws per front paw.
Three years ago, Aranciaga found the first piece of Maip on his first professional expedition to Argentina.
A large cache of bones were dug up, cleaned and categorized, which took months.
Aranciaga said it was a huge thrill when he lifted the vertebra and saw that it had the characteristics of a megaraptor.
He told Agence France-Presse that he fulfilled his childhood dream by finding a new fossil and it turned out to be a megaraptor.
Fernando Novas of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences says that Maip was one of the last megaraptors to live before the dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago.
Aranciaga said that it is the southernmost megaraptor ever found.
Agence France-Presse
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