a carcharodontosaurid (shark-toothed) theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretacous of Argentina.
Pronunciation: TOH-ro-VEN-uh-tuh
Meaning: Bull Hunter
Author/s: Motta
et al. (
2016)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Río Negro, Argentina
Discovery Chart Position: #915
Taurovenator violantei
(Violante's bull hunter)Etymology
Taurovenator is derived from the Latin "tauro" (bull) and "venator" (Hunter).
The
species epithet,
violantei, honours Enzo
Violante, owner of the farm where the specimen was found.
Discovery
The remains of
Taurovenator were discovered in the Huincul Formation at the Violante farm, southeast of the Ezequiel Ramos-Mexía lake, Río Negro province, Argentina, by Matías Motta in 2005.
The
holotype (MPCA PV 802) is a skull bone (right postorbital). At the same time, roughly 800m from the holotype, a partial skeleton (MPCA-Pv 803), including a partial skull, vertebrae from the neck, back and tail, ribs, two partial forelimbs, a thighbone, and a partial foot, was discovered. However, it had not been completely collected, prepared, or made available for study by the time
Taurovenator was named, but it was assigned to it in 2020.
• MJ Motta, AM Aranciaga Rolando, S Rozadilla, FE Agnolín, NR Chimento, FB Egli and FE Novas (2016) "New theropod fauna from the Upper Cretaceous (Huincul Formation) of northwestern Patagonia, Argentina".
Cretaceous Period: Biotic Diversity and Biogeography. Bulletin of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 71: 231-253.
• Aranciaga Rolando AM, MJ Motta, FE Agnolín, Tsuihiji T, Miner S, Brissón-Egli F and Novas FE (2024) "A new carcharodontosaurid specimen sheds light on the anatomy of South American giant predatory dinosaurs".
The Science of Nature, 111(56). DOI: 10.1007/s00114-024-01942-4.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
TAUROVENATOR :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/TAUROVENATOR›. Web access: 07th Mar 2026.
