NAME: Meaning - Megaraptor means "huge robber"
Pronounced - meg-a-RAP-tor
Named By - Fernando E. Novas
When Named - 1998
DIET: Carnivore (meat-eater)
SIZE: Length - 20-26 feet (6-8 m) long
Height - roughly 6 ft (2 m) tall at the hips
Weight - ?
WHEN IT LIVED: Late Cretaceous period, about 90-84 million years ago
WHERE IT LIVED: Fossils have been found in the Rio Neuquen Rock Formation, Sierra del Portezuelo, Province of Neuquen, Argentina, South America.
FOSSILS: Megaraptor remains were found in 1996 in Northwest Patagonia, Argentina, by paleontologist Fernando E. Novas. Only a few toe and leg bones have been found, including a sickle-claw 14 inch (35 cm) long.
CLASSIFICATION: Kingdom Animalia (animals)
Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
Tetanura - advanced theropods with three fingers
Infraorder Coelurosauria - lightly-built fast-running predators with hollow bones and large brains
Family Deinonychosauria (dromaeosaurids and their ancestors) - sickle-clawed predators
Genus Megaraptor
Species M. namunhuaiquii (type species named by Novas, 1998)

INTERESTING
FACTS: Megaraptor was a large, terrifying late Cretaceous predator with two enormous, sickle-like toe claws . It was a huge, lightly built, fast-moving, agile, bipedal (walked on two legs), bird-like dinosaur. It had a curved, flexible neck, and a big head with sharp, serrated teeth in very powerful jaws.
The second toe on each foot had a 14 inch (35 cm) sickle-like claw and the other toes had smaller claws. When alive, this claw would have been sheathed in a horny, keratinous material much like our fingernails, making the claw even bigger, longer and sharper.