Argentine Scientists Find Fossils Of The Largest Raptor Dinosaur, Reaching 10 Meters In Length

Illustration of a collection of dinosaur fossils at the Natural Science Museum El Chocon Patagonia, Argentina. (Wikimedia Commons/Simona.Cerrato)

JAKARTA - A team of Argentine paleontologists have found the remains of the largest dinosaur belonging to the raptor family, during excavations in Patagonia, Argentina. This is the largest ever recorded.

The new species, named Maip macrothorax, has a length of between nine and ten meters. Meanwhile, the other megaraptor was no more than nine meters tall, explained one of the scientists who participated in the discovery, Mauro Aranciaga Rolando.

"This animal was very large and we were able to find a lot of its remains," Aranciaga Rolando told Reuters as quoted on May 6, as the fossils were displayed at the Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences in the capital Buenos Aires.

The fossils were discovered in March 2019 in the Patagonia province of Santa Cruz, days before strict COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were imposed, said the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, where the experts who discovered the dinosaur came from.

Interestingly, two scientists from Japan also participated in the Argentine expedition.

Due to the pandemic, paleontologists initially had to distribute the fossils among themselves and analyze them at home.

It is known that carnivorous dinosaurs are thought to have inhabited what is now the southern tip of Argentina 70 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period.

Megaraptors were animals with an agile skeleton, a long tail that allowed them to maneuver and balance, a long neck and an elongated skull with more than 60 tiny teeth, explains Aranciaga Rolando, who explains that the sharp-tipped "Maip" limbs are the animal's most dangerous weapon.