Sinraptor

What it was like

Sinraptor was a large, deep-skulled predator with blade-shaped, serrated teeth built for tackling sizeable prey. It walked on two strong legs, balanced by a long, heavy tail, and was almost certainly one of the largest hunters in its ecosystem. Sinraptor grew to about 7.6 meters (25 feet) long, making it a similar size to the more famous Allosaurus.

Its world

Sinraptor lived from about 168 to 155 million years ago, during the Middle to Late Jurassic, in what is now China. Its fossils come from the Shaximiao and Shishugou formations, rock layers that have produced some of the richest Jurassic dinosaur faunas known from Asia. It shared its world with long-necked sauropods such as Mamenchisaurus and Shunosaurus, the small predator Guanlong, and its close relative Yangchuanosaurus. Other predators, such as Monolophosaurus, also hunted in the same region, alongside armored dinosaurs like Gigantspinosaurus.

How it was found

Currie and Zhao named Sinraptor in 1994. Two fossil finds are known, including a well preserved skeleton that has made Sinraptor one of the best studied members of its family, Metriacanthosauridae. It remains an important genus for understanding how this whole group of large Jurassic predators evolved.