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Monday, July 1, 2019

Australovenator the Banjo Raptor


Australovenator climbing a Hill

Australovenator is the most complete predatory dinosaur found in Australia.  It was a large raptor but it had its killing claws on its hands instead of its feet.  It was around 20 feet or 6 meters long and probably weighed from 1,100 to 2,200 lbs  . . . . that would be 500 to 1,000 kg.  

It had very flexible and useful hands for grabbing and holding and killing prey.  It possibly used that large pair of hand claws for killing since it appears to have had a fairly weak bite.  It may have had some of the most useful hands of any known Theropod (carnivorous dinosaur).  

I noticed that its long weak biting snout and big killing claws are similar to traits found on Spinosaurs.  It is thought that Spinosuars used those large claws to fillet their fish.  So I wonder if Australovenator might have also been a piscavore (fish eater).  This COULD be a case of convergent evolution because the Spinosaurs are NOT closely related to Australovenator. 

I should note that some of these dinosaurs were found around a large Sauropod skeleton and that Sauropod was Diamantinasaurus matildae.  So Australovenator was nicknamed "Banjo" after Banjo Paterson, the composer of the famous Australian song Waltzing Matilda.  

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Below is a Spinosaur for comparison: 

Spinosaurus fishing with Young

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