Paleontologist Dr Oliver Rauhut of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany, and his colleagues have described a new dinosaur genus and species that lived in what is now Venezuela during the earliest part of the Jurassic period, about 201 million years ago.
Tachiraptor admirabilis attacking a herd of plant-eating Laquintasaura venezuelae. Image credit: © Maurílio Oliveira / PaleoArt.
The newly-discovered dinosaur is a small bipedal theropod, with an estimated body length slightly over 1.5 meters.
It belongs to a sister group of Averostra, a large clade of theropod dinosaurs that is known primarily from the Middle Jurassic.
The paleontologists found only two fossilized bones of the new dinosaur in the La Quinta Formation, about 4 km northwest of the town of La Grita in Táchira, Venezuela.
They named the new genus and species – Tachiraptor admirabilis.
Tachiraptor admirabilis fossilized bones. Image credit: Max C. Langer et al.
“The genus name tachiraptor derives from Táchira and raptor (Latin for thief), in reference to the probable predatory habits of the animal,” the team explained in a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
“The specific name admirabilis honors Simon Bolivar’s ‘Admirable Campaign,’ in which the town of La Grita played a strategic role.”
Tachiraptor admirabilis probably preyed upon any smaller creature it could catch, including a recently discovered plant-eating dinosaur called Laquintasaura venezuelae.
_____
Max C. Langer et al. New dinosaur (Theropoda, stem-Averostra) from the earliest Jurassic of the La Quinta formation, Venezuelan Andes. Royal Society Open Science 1: 140184, published online October 08, 2014; doi: 10.1098/rsos.140184
