Pandoravenator
Named for 'Caja de Pandora' (Pandora's box), the type locality in Patagonia, combined with Latin 'venator' meaning 'hunter'; translates as 'Pandora hunter'.
Pandoravenator is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic (Oxfordian to Tithonian) of central Patagonia (Chubut Province). Fossils in the form of a fragmentally preserved postcranial skeleton of this dinosaur were discovered and scientifically described in 2017 by paleontologists Oliver Rauhut and Diego Pol as the type species P. fernandezorum.
Diagnosis
- Astragalus with anterior and distal lateral tubercles adjacent to contact with calcaneum
- Anteriorly facing astragalar body offset from distal part by transverse groove
- Ascending process of astragalus laminar, very low (about one-third astragalar body height), triangular in anterior view, inclined laterally
- Metatarsal III shaft strongly constricted between metatarsals II and IV
- Postzygapophyses of posterior caudal vertebrae elongate, overhanging approximately half the length of following centrum
Species
Pandoravenator fernandezorum Rauhut & Pol, 2017
Type species
Named in honor of the Fernández family, including Daniel Fernández and the late Victoriano Fernández and the latter's children (especially Abel), who facilitated exploration by the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio on their land in the Upper Jurassic rocks of central Chubut for more than twenty years.
- Holotype
- MPEF PV 1773-3 , Museo Paleontológico "Egidio Feruglio"
- Material
- Disarticulated right hindlimb elements
- Horizon
- lower Cañadón Calcáreo Formation, Oxfordian–Kimmeridgian, Late Jurassic , 161.5–149.2 million years ago
- Locality
- Caja de Pandora, Chubut, Argentina Rauhut and Pol (2017) refer the beds to "the basal part of the Cañadón Calcáreo Formation, latest Oxfordian to Kimmeridgian", close to a tuff dated 157 Ma at nearby Puesto Almada; the bones were surface finds whose exact level was not identified.
References
- Rauhut, O. W. M.; Pol, D. (2017). A Theropod Dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Cañadón Calcáreo Formation of Central Patagonia, and the Evolution of the Theropod Tarsus. Ameghiniana 54(5): 539-566. Asociacion Paleontologica Argentina. doi:10.5710/amgh.12.10.2017.3105 rauhut2017a