{"id":35555,"date":"2025-09-24T17:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/35555\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T17:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:54:09","slug":"newly-discovered-megaraptor-still-had-an-ancient-crocodile-in-its-mouth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/35555\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly Discovered Megaraptor Still Had an Ancient Crocodile in Its Mouth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists in Patagonia <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-025-63793-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">just revealed their research<\/a> on the Joaquinraptor Casali, a newly discovered megaraptor with Freddy Kruger-style knife hands that apparently died with chunks of crocodile in its mouth.<\/p>\n<p>This thing was not the size of the velociraptors you\u2019re imagining from Jurassic Park. It was 23 feet long. And it was an apex predator with oversized, knife-like hands that had no natural rivals because, at the time, South America didn\u2019t have tyrannosaurs roaming around. <\/p>\n<p>Joaquinraptor sat comfortably atop its food chain, and evidently treated the crocodiles\u2019 ancient ancestor, crocodyliforms, like a snack. Paleontologists found part of a croc\u2019s leg jammed between the lower jaws of the fossilized Joaquinraptor.<\/p>\n<p>The bone had bite marks indicating that it was in contact with the predator\u2019s teeth, suggesting that Joaquinraptor was either mid-bite or maybe even in the middle of a messy brawl between ancient beasts when the extinction asteroid slammed into Earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInterestingly, we recovered a humerus, between the lower jaw bones of\u00a0Joaquinraptor, suggesting \u2013 though not proving \u2013 that the new megaraptor may have been eating the crocodyliform when it died,\u201d Lucio Ibiricu, a paleontologist at the Patagonian Institute of Geology and Paleontology (IPGP), told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/new-megaraptor-species-found-with-shocking-last-meal-still-in-its-mouth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">ScienceAlert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"1024\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Newly-Discovered-Megaraptor-Died-With-An-Ancient-Crocodile-In-Its-Mouth.jpg\" alt=\"Newly Discovered Megaraptor Died With An Ancient Crocodile In Its Mouth\" class=\"wp-image-1911082\"  \/>Joaquinraptor Casali<\/p>\n<p>Newly Discovered Megaraptor Died With An Ancient Crocodile In Its Mouth<\/p>\n<p>This particular fossil is a big deal. It\u2019s one of the most complete megaraptor specimens ever dug up, offering juicy clues about a weird group of predators that remain understudied thanks to bad fossil luck. <\/p>\n<p>Scientists believe this Joaquinraptor was about 19 years old and not even fully grown. Megaraptors like Joaquinraptor are evolutionary outliers. <\/p>\n<p>Unlike tyrannosaurs, these guys leaned into speed and relied on their deadly claws\u2014especially on their first and second fingers. That raptor claw Alan Grant uses to terrify the kid at the beginning of Jurassic Park? Think that, but bigger, like a Chinese meat cleaver. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Their reign lasted until about 68 million years ago, right before an asteroid abruptly ended the Cretaceous period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists in Patagonia just revealed their research on the Joaquinraptor Casali, a newly discovered megaraptor with Freddy Kruger-style&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[29441,10828,85,46,2400,43,29442,18658,141],"class_list":["post-35555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-archeologists","tag-dinosaurs","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-life","tag-news","tag-paleontologist","tag-paleontology","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}