Thanks to its reign of terror in “Jurassic Park,” the Velociraptor is a notorious prehistoric predator.
But the sickle-claw killing machines familiar to movie fans are far from scientific. It's not just that the fictional killing machine doesn't have wings. The real Velociraptor was about the size of a Labrador retriever, much smaller than the human-sized hunter depicted in the film series.
Still, some raptors have reached impressive sizes. A team of paleontologists also said they may have identified a new megaraptor based on a series of fossilized footprints discovered in China. In a paper published this week in the journal iScience, researchers estimate that the footprints were left by a dinosaur, which may be one of the largest raptors known to science. did.
This raptor footprint is part of a large dinosaur footprint discovered in southeastern China in 2020. During the Late Cretaceous period, about 90 million years ago, this area was a muddy river plain that was home to all kinds of dinosaurs, including long-necked sauropods and ducks. -Claimed herbivore. These dinosaur inhabitants left behind muddy footprints as they roamed. Some of it has been preserved for tens of millions of years.
Approximately 240 dinosaur footprints have been discovered at the ruins of a hockey rink-sized track field in Tatsugo City. Some of the footprints are oddly shaped and have preserved traces of his only two toes.
“If you find a footprint of a dinosaur with only two toes, you can play Cinderella's slipper game and try to find a matching foot,” says Paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study. says scholar Stephen Brusatte. “The only dinosaurs that walked on two legs were 'raptors' like Velociraptor and their relatives.”
The Raptors left such strange marks because their inside toes were off the ground. This prevented the oversized recurved claws on the toes from dragging on the ground and becoming dull.
Some of Longchamp's two-toed footprints appear to have been left by small dinosaurs about the size of velociraptors. However, researchers found five footprints over 13 inches long, making them the largest raptor footprints in the fossil record. Judging by the size of the footprints, the dinosaur it left behind was about 5 feet tall and 15 feet long, putting it in the vicinity of some of the largest known raptors, such as Utahraptor.
Inspired by its distinctive footprints, paleontologists named the new bird of prey Yingliangi (meaning “foothills of Fujian”). The discovery of fossilized bones helps researchers further flesh out the animal's appearance, but the proportions of its two fingers suggest that Fujianips was a bird that lived in Asia and North America during the Cretaceous period. It is most likely a member of the Troodontidae family, a type of raptor.
Birds of prey are often depicted as fast-paced predators. However, W. Scott Parsons, a paleontologist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and co-author of the new paper, says footprints alone don't tell you how fast Fujianips moved.
He believes the raptor was likely staring at its feet as it traversed the muddy riverbed. “When you're walking on mud, you're going to have to be very careful not to slip,” Dr. Parsons says. “That was probably true for our raptors as well.”
Without fossilized foot bones, researchers cannot estimate Fujianipus' speed. But the troodontid family probably belongs there, and is “the longest-legged of all raptors,” Parsons said, suggesting Fujianips was probably a swift predator.
Speed would have been at a premium during the Late Cretaceous period, when the older lineages of predatory dinosaurs were gradually being replaced by raptors and groups of up-and-coming carnivores like the lanky tyrannosaurs.
“During this period, two iconic groups of dinosaurs, tyrannosaurs and raptors, both appear to have competed for the throne of medium-sized predators,” Dr. Brusatte said.
While Tyrannosaurus continued to grow into giant creatures like Tyrannosaurus rex, raptors remained mostly small. Giants like Fujianipus and Utahraptor are outliers.
“Birds of prey experimented with large body size, but unlike many other carnivorous dinosaur groups, they didn't stick to it,” Dr. Parsons said. “Birds of prey appear to have been much better at being small and medium-sized carnivores than being large.”