What is Megaraptora?

The most inclusive clade comprising Megaraptor namunhuaiquii but not Chilantaisaurus tashuikouensis, Neovenator salerii, Carcharodontosaurus saharicus or Allosaurus fragilis. Megaraptora is a group of predatory dinosaurs that inhabited Asia, Australia and South America from Barremian through Maastrichtian times.

They are diognosed by their elongate skull and generally short and strongly-curved teeth, some of which are 8-shaped in cross section, powerful arms with enlarged claws on digits I and II of their three-fingered hands. Additionally, they posessed a highly pneumatic (lightweight, air filled) axial skeleton (bones of the skull, ribcage, pelvis and spinal column) that extended to the middle portion of the tail.

When coined in 2009, Megaraptora was assigned as a sub group to Neovenatoridae and held up as evidence that some members of Allosauroidea (to which Neovenatoridae belongs) did indeed live right up to the latest Cretaceous and that tyrannosauroids weren't necessarily top of every food chain at the dinosaurian end of days. However, Megaraptora has since been recovered as a grouping within Tyrannosauroidea and Carcharodontosauria, and at the foot of Coelurosauria which is where most troublesome theropods spend at least a portion of their time.

Despite ongoing debates about their exact classification, megaraptorans appear to have originated in Asia during the late Jurassic period. They migrated to Australia in the Early Cretaceous, where they evolved into megaraptorids. These megaraptorids then spread to South America during the mid-Cretaceous, where they grew significantly larger than their Asian and Australian relatives, and assumed the role of apex predators, dominating their ecosystems during the Late Cretaceous.

Click here to search Dinochecker for megaraptorans. Megaratora—Great plunderers—is derived from the Greek "megas" (great, large), and the Latin "raptor" (plunderer, thief) and "-a" (plural).