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A new giant theropod from Late Cretaceous Patagonia, Meraxes gigas.

This is a very exciting discovery! We have a new large carcharodontosaurid, and it's fairly complete by carcharodontosaurid standards! It's named after the dragon from A Song of Fire and Ice.



You can see there's a fairly complete skull. Small bits of the neck. Nearly complete shoulder and arms. Almost complete set of legs and hips. Very small bits of the torso, and a chunk of the tail.



The skull is in very good shape for a carcharodontosaurid. The only other complete skull is Acrocanthosaurus. The Meraxes skull is around 1.27 m or around 4.3 feet, slightly bigger than Acrocanthosaurus.



The shoulder and hands confirm something that's been suspected since Mapusaurus, and it's that animals belonging to the Giganotosaurini tribe have small hands similar to tyrannosaurids. At around 36 feet (11 meters), Meraxes's arms are similar in size to Tarbosaurus, and Tarbosaurus is known for having the smallest arms relative to the size of its body. The largest Tarbosaurus is also around 36 feet in length. The thinking is that theropods that evolved large heads rely primarily on it as their hunting tool, and large powerful arms aren't needed. Though might be more true for theropods within Giganotosaurini. Theropods more distant from it such as Acrocanthosaurus has relatively long and robust arms in comparison.



What's most interesting, or unexpected is the massive toe claw on the second digit. It's a diagnostic feature of this species. This is not known in any carcharodontosaurids... so far due to not having any complete feet. It's not as curved as the dromaeosaurs (such as Velociraptor), but it's still incredibly intimidating. Definitely a deadly weapon. How it's used is up for debate.


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