Overview

• Researchers formally describe the species in Nature Communications, identifying one of the most completely represented megaraptorans to date.
• The partial skeleton, excavated in 2019 at the Río Chico headwaters in Chubut’s Lago Colhué Huapi Formation, preserves much of the skull plus forelimb and hind limb bones.
• Bone histology indicates an approximately 19-year-old animal about 7 meters long and roughly one tonne that lived on a warm, humid coastal floodplain as the largest known predator in its ecosystem.
• A crocodyliform humerus lodged between the lower jaw bones suggests possible prey selection, though scenarios such as scavenging, conflict, or transport by water remain under evaluation.
• Dated to roughly 70–66 million years ago, the specimen ranks among the youngest megaraptorans known, and phylogenetic results place Megaraptora within Coelurosauria as sister to Tyrannosauroidea.