Buitreraptor

Buitreraptor was a small dromeosaurid dinosaur that lived in Argentina. It lived during the Late Cretaceous period about 94 million years ago. In that time South America was isolated continent like Australia today and animals who lived there was unique. Such was the Buitreraptor. Its name means "vulture raider". Strange name, isn't it?

Buitraptor was a rather small, raven like dinosaur. Its length estimated at 1.5 meters. But it was very light. Only 3 kilograms. Buitreraptor had some different features than typical North American dromeosaurid such as Velociraptor. uitreraptor has a slender, flat, extremely elongated snout with many small teeth.  It was rather a hunter of small animals such as lizards and mammals. No fossil discoveries have been made of any feathers of Buitreraptor. However, there are relatives like Microraptor and Sinornithosaurus, of which fossils with preserved feathers are known. Since its close relatives had feathers, it is likely that Buitreraptor also was feathered. 

This discovery in the Southern-Hemisphere confirms that dinosaurs were more extensively dispersed around the world than previously thought. Scientists now believe that dromaeosaurs date back to Jurassic times, when all the continents were much closer together. Possibly they originated on the ancient continent Laurasia.

The fossilized bones were found in 2005 in sandstone in Patagonia, Argentina - by an dig lead by Peter Makovicky, curator of dinosaurs at the Field Museum in Chicago. The field research of Buitreraptor was led by Argentine paleontologist Sebastian Apesteguia. Buitreraptor was discovered in the same fossil site that had earlier yielded Giganotosaurus, the largest carnivorous dinosaur known to science since 1995.