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Aoniraptor

Say it: ay-oh-nee-RAP-tor

Name means: “southern thief”1

Ate: MeatMeat-eating dinosEarly Cretaceous

Aoniraptor was a meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina. It was a megaraptoran, a group of theropods with big claws. It could grow up to 6 metres (20 feet) long, as long as a school bus!1

Lived

110 to 106 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Violante farm in the Huincul Formation, Argentina4 1

Food

Meat4

Length

up to 6 m1

Height

up to 2.4 m2

hip height

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

hip height

as long as 6 dogs nose to tailas long as 33 bananas end to endabout as tall as a door

How big was Aoniraptor compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Aoniraptor's name comes from the Tehuelche word 'Aoni' meaning south and the Latin word 'raptor' meaning thief.1

Its species name 'libertatem' means freedom in Latin, because it was discovered in 2010, the bicentennial of Argentina's independence.1

The only known fossils of Aoniraptor are a partial skeleton including tail bones and blood arches.1

Some scientists think Aoniraptor might be the same dinosaur as Gualicho, another megaraptoran from the same formation, but others disagree.1

Aoniraptor lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 106 million years ago.4

It was a ground-dwelling carnivore that moved actively on land.4

AI-made picture of Aoniraptor — An AI-made picture of how Aoniraptor might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Aoniraptor

?How big was Aoniraptor?

Aoniraptor grew up to 6 metres (20 feet) long, about as long as a school bus.1

?What did Aoniraptor eat?

Aoniraptor was a carnivore, meaning it ate meat.4

?When did Aoniraptor live?

Aoniraptor lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 106 million years ago.1 4

?Was Aoniraptor the same as Gualicho?

Some scientists have suggested they might be the same, but a 2020 study found many differences between them, so they are likely different dinosaurs.1 3

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Aoniraptor
Named by: Motta et al. 20164
Group: Meat-eating dinos
Family / clade: Megaraptora4
Classification: Theropoda > Megaraptora4
Age of the rocks: 110 to 106 million years (Albian)4
Rock formations: Huincul4
Countries: Argentina4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Aoniraptor was discovered by Matias Motta at Violante Farm in Argentina in 2010. It was formally named and described by Motta and colleagues in 2016.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether Aoniraptor is actually the same dinosaur as Gualicho, another megaraptoran from the same area.1

Where the facts come from

Aoniraptor (en.wikipedia.org)
AONIRAPTOR - DinoChecker dinosaur archive (dinochecker.com)
Histology and pneumaticity of Aoniraptor libertatem (Dinosauria, Theropoda), an enigmatic mid‐sized megaraptoran from Patagonia (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Aoniraptor in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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