Gojirasaurus

What it was like

Gojirasaurus was a meat-eating theropod from the very early days of the dinosaurs, when Late Triassic predators tended to be small and lightly built. It appears to have been considerably larger than most other theropods of its time, though it is known from only fragmentary remains, so its full size and appearance are not well established. Its name was inspired by a famous movie monster, chosen to suit an animal of unusual size for its age.

Its world

Gojirasaurus lived in what is now New Mexico, in the southwestern United States, between about 227 and 206 million years ago. This was still early in the age of dinosaurs, when the group had not yet grown into the giants of later periods, and Gojirasaurus shared its world with a range of other early reptiles across the region now called Pangaea.

How it was found

Carpenter named Gojirasaurus in 1997, based on bones recovered from the Bull Canyon Formation. Only one fossil find is known, so many details about how it lived remain unresolved.