What is Megaraptora?

The most inclusive clade comprising Megaraptor namunhuaiquii but not Chilantaisaurus tashuikouensis, Neovenator salerii, Carcharodontosaurus saharicus or Allosaurus fragilis. Megaraptora is a group of predatory dinosaurs that inhabited Asia, Australia and South America from Barremian through Maastrichtian times.

They are diognosed by their elongate skull and unique short and strongly-curved teeth that are 8-shaped in cross section, long powerful arms with enlarged claws on digits I and II, and highly pneumatic axial skeleton reaching to the middle portion of the tail.

When coined in 2009, Megaraptora was assigned as a sub group to Neovenatoridae and held up as evidence that some members of Allosauroidea (to which Neovenatoridae belongs) did indeed live right up to the latest Cretaceous and that tyrannosauroids weren't necessarily top of every food chain at the dinosaurian end of days. However, Megaraptora has since been recovered as a grouping within Tyrannosauroidea and Carcharodontosauria, and at the foot of Coelurosauria which is where most troublesome theropods spend at least a portion of their time.

Regardless of which branch they actually represent, megaraptorans seem to have risen in Asia during the latest Jurassic and reached Australia during the Early Cretaceous, then they diverged into megaraptorids and dispersed to South America during the "middle" Cretaceous and grew substantially larger than their Asian and Australian counterparts as they claimed the apex predator niche in their respective habitats during the Late Cretaceous.

Click here to search Dinochecker for megaraptorans. Megaratora—Great plunderers—is derived from the Greek "megas" (great, large), and the Latin "raptor" (plunderer, thief) and "-a" (plural).