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Santanaraptor

Say it: san-TAH-nuh-RAP-tor

Name means: “Santana Formation thief”1

Ate: MeatMeat-eating dinosEarly Cretaceous

Santanaraptor was a small, fast meat-eating dinosaur that lived in Brazil about 112 million years ago. It is known from a partial skeleton that even includes some preserved skin and muscle fibers!1

Lived

120 to 113 million years ago2

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Romualdo Formation, Ceará State, northeastern Brazil1 2

Food

Meat2

Length

up to 1.5 m1

estimate based on a juvenile specimen

Weight

up to 15 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 4 house cats

as long as 3 house cats nose to tailas long as 8 bananas end to endas heavy as 120 bananas

How big was Santanaraptor compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Santanaraptor is one of the few dinosaurs that preserves soft tissues, including a thin layer of skin, muscle fibers, and possibly blood vessels.1

The only known fossil of Santanaraptor is a juvenile, so scientists are not sure how big adults grew.1

Skin impressions under its left foot show that Santanaraptor had scales.1

When first discovered, Santanaraptor was thought to be a maniraptoran, but now many scientists think it was an early relative of tyrannosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex.1

Santanaraptor lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 112 million years ago.1

The species name placidus honors Placido Cidade Nuvens, who founded the Museum of Paleontology in the region where the fossil was found.1

AI-made picture of Santanaraptor — An AI-made picture of how Santanaraptor 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 Santanaraptor

?How big was Santanaraptor?

The only known fossil is a juvenile that may have reached about 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) in length and weighed about 15 kilograms (33 pounds).1

?Did Santanaraptor have feathers?

No direct feather fossils are known for Santanaraptor, but it is a coelurosaur, a group that includes feathered dinosaurs. Skin impressions under its foot show scales.1

?What did Santanaraptor eat?

Santanaraptor was a meat-eating dinosaur, but no specific prey remains are known from its fossil.1

?Is Santanaraptor a dinosaur?

Yes, Santanaraptor is a small theropod dinosaur.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Santanaraptor
Named by: Kellner 19992
Group: Meat-eating dinos
Family / clade: Coelurosauria2
Classification: Theropoda2
Age of the rocks: 120 to 113 million years (Aptian)2
Rock formations: Romualdo2
Countries: Brazil2
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Santanaraptor was named by Alexander Kellner in 1999 based on a partial skeleton unearthed in 1996 from the Romualdo Formation in Brazil.1 2
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Santanaraptor was a tyrannosauroid, a megaraptoran, or an early maniraptoromorph.1

Where the facts come from

Santanaraptor (en.wikipedia.org)
Santanaraptor 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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