Santanaraptor
Name:
Santanaraptor
(Santana thief).
Phonetic: San-tan-ah-rap-tor.
Named By: Kellner - 1999.
Classification: Choradata, Reptilia,
Dinosauria, Saurischia, Theropoda, Tyrannosauroidea?
Species: S. placidus (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: 1.25 meter long.
Known locations: Brazil - Santana Formation.
Time period: Aptian to Albian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial remains of
vertebrae, ischia and hind limbs, but fossilised soft tissue was
also found.
Santanaraptor
has caused a stir within the palaeontological world not only because
some palaeontologists think it is an early tyrannosaurid, but because
it was found in South America, a continent long thought to be devoid
of the presence of tyrannosaurs. Apart from similar skeletal
features, Santanaraptor is in the right time and
location that you
would expect an early tyrannosaurid to appear, after all spinosaurids
are known Brazil, and are thought to have arrived via a land bridge
from North Africa. Early tyrannosaurids also have a large geographic
range being known from North America with Stokesosaurus
to Asia
with Dilong
and Guanlong,
all the way to the British Isles with
Eotyrannus.
Unfortunately
as exciting as this concept possibly is, later study and examination
of the fossils has since ruled them to probably represent a
coelurosaur. This actually does explain the tyrannosauroid similarity
as the tyrannosaurs are thought to have their evolutional roots
within this group.
Although
the remains of Santanaraptor were very incomplete,
they did at least
yield an idea of this dinosaur’s biology with the presence of
mineralised soft tissue. This tissue is thought to represent skin and
muscle, although it may include blood vessels. On its own it does
not reveal the complete inner working of dinosaur biology, but as
time goes on more and more soft tissue fossils become known to
science, allowing the work of revealing dinosaur biology to go beyond
the theory and into the practical.
Further reading
- Short note on a new dinosaur (Theropoda, Coelurosauria) from the
Santana Formation (Romualdo Member, Albian), northeastern Brazil. -
Boletim do Museu Nacional, Nova S�rie 49:1-8. - A. W. A. Kellner - 1999.
- Tyrannosauroids from the Southern Hemisphere: Implications for
biogeography, evolution, and taxonomy. - Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. - Rafael Delcourt & Orlando
Nelson Grillo - 2018.
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