Unlikely. Their claws would have posed a far too great risk of puncturing the ball. I propose they would have instead depended on hard pucks and hockey sticks. 🧐
Megaraptors are and absolute classification nightmare indeed. Hopefully more and more species should help the paleontologists to finally conclude whether if megaraptors belong to their own genera or directly related to other generas
Indeed. I'd like to see a complete skeleton of a megaraptoran discovered, or at least one on par with Sue and the Wankel T. rex in regards to completeness.
@@Geothermic They would most definitely have been present in Antarctica. Antarctica basically functioned as something of a link between East Gondwana (Australia) and West Gondwana (South America). Given that Megaraptorans are present in both east and west it's more or less certain they were present in Antarctica as well.
@@BenGThomas,I'm making a new series coming soon on the genius primate channel, is called the family tree of phylogenetics, and the first episode features dinosaur king the family tree of phylogenetics teaser trailer / Genius primate th-cam.com/video/4iy_hzEgBlI/w-d-xo.html
Something I just realized is that raptorians having only one big slashing claw is very logical. One slashing edge is more efficient than multiple ones, allowing to focus entire strength of the animal on a single "point" for deeper strikes. Megaraptorians having multiple big claws might either mean that their hunting tactics weren't as focused on inflicting big slashing wounds or they didn't need such comparatively big claws to damage internal tissue of their prey.
@@rodrigopinto6676 Pure Scavenger behavior is not widely known in the animal kingdom outside of highly motile and fairly small bodied animals insects and birds, opportunistic scavenger behavior is widely distributed among animal clades including not just carnivores but even many animals which are otherwise herbivorous so its safe to assume they were partly scavengers but scavenging seems unlikely to drive the kind of specialization seen in this clade.
I appreciate that in your videos you get into detail but also keep it accessible enough that those of us who aren't students or professionals in Paleontology can still follow & learn from your content. Thanks for keeping my love of extinct creatures alive. ❤️
Animals are a dead end interest because they don't go anywhere and you can't actually do anything with them aside from ugly ones. The experience builds to nothing, unless you could actually be one.
Totally wild that in only 25 years it went from... new kind of dinosaur... to a dozen species. That's a veritable avalanche of discoveries. It makes me wonder if some of these are really synonyms, but I would hope that at this point naming new species is more rigorous than it used to be.
Its so good to see such an in depth video on my favorite group of theropods. I really hope that in the future we discover even bigger members of this clade!
everyone wants to find the next big boy but those conjugated and bizarre psychological necessities don't lead to anything and are bad because 9/10 they can't even be found, tyrannosaurus rex is a very unappealing dinosaur. You can see the dumbness in the countenance of something like aoniraptor instead of troodon. The eyes are smaller and you can tell at once it lacks binocular vision, it's a dim thing. Stop overrating the intelligence of animals you like.
I love hearing about megaraptorans, there's so much scattered and contradictory info that it's really difficult to find any good solid history for them. Great video as always man!
megaraptors, who cares, you have a model of them? fated to be in movies, fated to be featured in a story, but that's as far as it goes isn't it it lacks dynamic motion, dynamic motion is necessary, is it? I don't know, probably
Great video as always and have to say it’s great to see a young guy like this putting out such excellent videos on the subject. A great inspiration for my sons.
I think your sons would find more inspiration in the two truths of life 1. make it unique 2. make it violent those are the only solutions to having a purposeful life, believe it or not, the third is the social sphere but that breeds thoroughly unenviable human life.
I think megaraptors were basically like terrestrial birds of prey: they chased down smaller prey then used their meat hook claws to snatch them up when they got within striking distance. The curvature of the claws seems to support this. I wonder also if some biomechanical study could be done to see if the arms would support being shot out forwards like this
I agree, seems like with their powerful arms, huge claws but what seem like comparatively kind of weak jaws & teeth that they mostly hunted prey smaller than themselves and just grabbed and ripped them apart. I think the fact that they seem to have had quite long and gracile legs probably means they were pretty solid runners, which might be more support for the idea of them hunting smaller prey animals.
The more I learn about the diversity of animals alive during the Age of Dinosaurs, the more I realize how lucky we are to be here. Without that asteroid impact, and possibly the Decan Trap eruptions, there’s no possibility for the rise of mammals. And if you look at the what mankind is doing to the planet, that asteroid impact can be seen as the most consequential event in all of earth’s history. Btw, I love your ability to pronounce all those names.
It sounds really goofy but it's even more odd and more goofy when you realize Maip means "the shadow of death that kills with cold wind, and has a large chest"
what? Biggest tyrannosaur during the extinction of the carcharodontosaurs was smaller than a grizzly lol, they were not the reason the carcharodontosaurs went extinct. Also, besides north america, there is no overlap in range between carcharodontosaurs and tyrannosaur ancestors.
@@Gabriel-bt7ix Bro do some reading. Siat's is known from about 8-9 vertebrae and partial pubic bone. We have absolutely no idea what it is and there is no reason to believe it is a tyrannosaur.
I think that it's becoming increasingly apparent that they place somewhere in the Coelurosauria, perhaps closely linked to the Tyrannosaur line, which would be very interesting if true. These guys have easily become some of my favorite dinosaurs, not only because of how cool they are, but also because of how mysterious they are.
Mystery? Stop loving mystery, you're only seting yourself up for disappointment when the mystery is solved. everything was a mystery before your era at some point. Pick up a bird who's never seen a human and take them inside and consider how genuinely paranormal that experience is for it, but you've been robbed of it, an early caveman seeing a beached and barely lucid porpoise might as well be seeing bigfoot, but real.
This channel is simply fantastic. Your direct involvement in this field shows through in your extremely insightful delivery of the information, while your understanding of internet culture and modern sensibilities makes it digestible and not just a wall of text.
Sop wasint gojn your life but wha can you odo? waste time, build a thing, autistic tangents, what does it amount to, what can be beheld? Not much. Power, there is no power, no powr nor agency nor nothing. Not even humans, even vehicles are losing agency. Ever ince alsexander the great we have taken that which is important and put it away from us.
I would say that more complete fossils of Siats and Chilantaisaurus would help, but i guess in this case literally anything would help with classification
Siats siats siats grow up no one is going to beat a rex and no one needs to becaus if you learned to walk you'd be there already but your stuck because you're not creatively inclined
@@neo-filthyfrank1347 wtf is wrong with you? Oh yea, since you mentioned that no one beats Tyrannosaurus (you said Rex because you think that there is only 1 rex but not realizing that when animal have rex in its name it doesnt make it anything special (classic T.rex fan)) let me introduce you to Edmontosaurus annectens, Shantungosaurus, Triceratopses, Torosaurus, Ankykosaurus, Deinosuchuses, Purussaurus, hundreds of sauropods, Eotriceratops, straight-tusked elephant, Barsboldia, Charonosaurus, Saichania, Saurolophus angustirostris, Pentaceratops, Titanoceratops, Alcovasaurus, Dancentrurus, Miragaia, Stegosaurus ungulatus, Giganotosaurus (which is literally 50/50 match) and more hadrosaurids, ceratopsids, ankylosaurids and stegosaurids (and thats only for biggest Tyrannosaurus specimens)
I love the video, I am still of the opinion that both Chilantaisaurus and Siats are not Megaraptorids, however there is still not enough known of those two to conclude what their relationship is. Only time and more research will tell.
Siats seems unlikely to be one to me, if only because of it's geographic location. Unless we're dealing with a ghost lineage of Megaraptorids in the northern hemisphere it seems like they were primarily confined to the southern landmasses.
@@seanmckelvey6618 yeah, that is what I thought, in addition it's size would be abnormal for the group when Siats was in existence, but it would not be strange for any Allosauroid, this is also why I included Chilantaisaurus. All I can hope for is that there is another fossil specimen that can be referred to the holotypes.
Great video, as always it takes me ages to watch as I'm constantly stopping and looking up each one online! So many tabs! haha 😅 I've been a follower for some years now, and I'm so glad to watch you progress so much in the last few, your longer content is also very interesting, the Shark Week Special was great.
Thank you for an exellent and superb video. - As far as I remember there was found and described a ca 45 cm long and curved claw from probably a forelimb, and HUGE FINGERCLAW from a Dinosaur in South America some years ago -. In my and many others opinion it must have come from an enormeous Megaraptor.. - A question to you Ben; - Do you know something about this enormeous 45 cm Claw and about the "owner" of this Claw ???
It was only a question. - This claw was descibed some years ago. It was found somewhere in South America. - It was descibed in a television documentary that I saw some years ago. - @@neo-filthyfrank1347
An interesting summation of the current problems with these theropods. We remember the Eotyrannus paper you refer to well, we at Everything Dinosaur helped to fund it.
Thank you, and that's amazing the Eotyrannus paper is a fantastic bit of research! Also I just wanted to say that I love your website, the Collecta Neovenator and Beasts of the Mesozoic Styracosaurus behind me in the video were bought through your site! :)
All I can say is that when I saw 2 large claws and a much smaller one, I assumed something that branched off from a common ancestor of the tyrannosaurs somewhere between the jurassic and cretaceous.
They share quite a bit in common with the early Tyrannosaurs, seems much more likely to me that they're Coelurosaurs at the very least, and probably quite closely related to the Tyrannosaurs. The limited anatomy we have so far for these animals does not scream Allosaur to me at all.
You actually didn't mention Megaraptor was thought to be a dromaeosaur because it's claw looked for the toes until it's known to have a big claw for hands like Spinosaurids.
Maip is My Favorite Member of this group and the most complete Giant megaraptor ever found so far. So I wonder if Africa and other continents even Australia had giant megaraptors in the late Cretaceous era as well that have yet to be discovered, and It just makes me curious just wonder if they'll be even as big as Maip. Maybe even Australia has a group of Megaraptorids that took over as super carnivores in the late Cretaceous who knows right?
An actual dinosaur fight would look boring from the perspective of a JW fanboy. The fanboy thinks they'll be flopping all over each other but really they are very line-y and conscious of their position, their agility is probably astonishgly less when compared to mammals or similar mass or volume.
Very interesting video about evolution and classification of megaraptoroids especially with them being an early radiation of tyrannosaurids. I have two questions. 1. How did megaraptors become geographically restricted to South America at the end of the Cretaceous? 2. Curiously there does not seem be have been any megaraptors found in Africa. Could it be that we have not been looking hard enough? If so, could megaraptors in Africa have undergone a similar radiation as in South America given the late cretaceous extinction of Charcarodontosaurus in Africa like in South America?
I’m sure they existed in Africa but we haven’t found any fossils yet . We know very little about Late Cretaceous Africa so who knows , maybe a 12M long Megaraptor is waiting to be discovered
Ben! excelent video! Love to see my Maip render featured! I work in Fernando Nova´s Lab, if you want some imagery or some information on Argentinian Dinosaurs just write me! We also have news coming in a few days 👀
Fantastic ! I worked with Matt White, the palaeo who described the Australovenator, banjo in Queensland at the AAOD museum. Did guided tours accompanied by Banjo and the sauropod it was found with, Matilda the Diamantinasaurus
Very cool, not just the fossil history but the recent history of our reconstructions. Would be nice if we could delve in what decisions and observations go into placing fossils among groups, clades and so on.
Why don't you just recreate the whole damn thing then huh? Just 3D bring a megaraptor bro, go ahead, I'm sure you can do it, I'm sure you can do it, but how does it move? These are the questions of the future. You can't see it but I can. Your heart has to want to go there, that's why modern movies resemble fanfiction so much.
One correction. Siats meekerorum is from the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation more specifically the Mussentuchit Member which is the last member of that geological sequence.
The Mussentuchit Wash site is dated to 96 to 94 Ma, which puts Siats in the very beginning of the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian stage). Early-Late Cretaceous boundary is 100.5 Ma.
I understand there would be some overlap with regard to what tyrannosaridae and megaraptorans preyed on, but would it be reasonable to assume that their evolution and hunting strategies were developed based on their preferred prey type? i.e it's hard to imagine a megaraptoran dealing with armored herbivores the same way a bone-crushing bite would. If that is true, their decline would be rooted in the decline of their prey items, meaning that tyrannosaurs rose to prominence (and specialization) thanks to an increase in their prey items. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.
what on earth are you even asking? 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 years is a long time, and the mites on your skin would evolve into new life, sapient life even, within a few million years only. You would have company sooner than you think. You know how dumb shows for kids show villains just materializing out of nothing? That's actually how it works on long enough timescales.
I was able to follow the video, but, by the time it was finished, the trail was so convoluted that I'm not quite certain what I just watched. It did succeed in undermining what I had always assumed about Theropods, though.
You really do deep dives into these animals and I was watching you do the video about the little dinosaur that they have the best idea of how it lookedcand you took a turn down the "cloaca route" which had me laughing, imagining you doing that part of your video in the museum! I had to subscribe, having watched several of your videos and enjoying them. What is going on in Argentina? They seem to be really into paleontology.
Keep in mind during the early cretececous south america and africa were much closer together. Sigilimassasarusu and spinosaurus and oxalia could all be friends or they could be different who the hell knows. Well the aliens there probably know. Stuck in that backwater lost in time and space. Would you like to meet God? He's in the sky, and he doesn't know you exist. The idiot machine brought you back here. In order to jump the recreation would have to probabalistically dominate the thing's existence to begin with. Or maybe not, but it would have to dominate the next step. But how? Fragmentation? You can't actually die you know.
Wow ! A lot to cover. I've wondered if Tyrannosaurs just wounded their pray and followed them until they died or became too weak. The small arm could help them get closer to their prey for biting . Bipedal seems to be a great aid for the success of these hunters. Did it increase their speed or range ( I'm guessing yes) but it seems there must have been many reasons hunters needed to adapt...otherwise they would have not needed a bipedal adaption. The existence of so many carnivores makes me guess there must have been a large amount of prey. ... ... we live in a world where carnivores have few meat sources that they exploit because of where they live. . Was that case then ? I've always thought the world then was ( like the ocean) an Eat anything you can get in your mouth... but maybe some were very specialized to their prey. Sorry for rambling. Thank for covering a vast subject. Good job.
Hope we get a sort of definitive answer on the Megaraptoran phylogeny But what was their ecological relation to Abelisaurs? Because they did share their habitat, but who hunted what and did they rival for prey?
@@edgeofsanity9111 I think Megaraptorans took the huge predator niche and hunted both sauropods and other large herbivores with which it shared it’s environment but this is speculation. The reason why i think this may had happened it’s because a Late Cretaceous South American Abelosaurid named Carnotaurus took the niche of fast running predator like the cheetahs today
I think Megaraptorids would hunt Titanosaurs (the longs arms and sharp claws might help grab on such big creatures). Abelisaurids would hunt Hadrosaurs (the streamlined bodyplan could catch up and they bite them like how lions do wildebeast). So niche partitioning.
Not that we've got the option atm but DNA would be fascinating re: stuff like the convergence of the two finger mod... some mods are going to be more reliable with fewer code changes.... feedback with actual environmental demands 🤯
One of the biggest advantages of bipedalism is that it frees an animal's arms, yet there were only around 3 groups of large theropods to capitalize on that. Weird.
As a confirmed abelisaurid, I’d like to say dinosaurs like megaraptors are cool even if they have bigger arms than us and are a fascinating dino friend :)
Is there somewhere online I can find a diagram that shows the progression from Tyrannosauroid to Tyrannosaurid? (I realize other branchings may be theoretical)
During your videos you often show charts showing the relationships between various dinosaurs. For a neophyte like myself these are very interesting and instructive, but since they are only shown for a minute or two at best it is impossible to really gain much information from them. Could you devote an episode to these diagrams? That way they could be downloaded and referred to during further videos. I know there must be a billion of them considering the huge number of dinosaurs you discuss, but maybe you could pick out the ones for the common (or extremely uncommon) species.
Am i the only one that thinks that well developed arm strength and range of motion paired with large talons could be for navigation of difficult more vertical terrain?
The highly developed forelimbs of megaraptors mean they could have had softball leagues.
Unlikely. Their claws would have posed a far too great risk of puncturing the ball. I propose they would have instead depended on hard pucks and hockey sticks. 🧐
Honestly I was wondering about their dexterity. There are not many things on Earth which prioritize that arm and chest development like we do
They might have been our genetic ancestor if the KT extinction hadn't occurred. Those arms + THUMBS?? Unstoppable.
Obvious piano player hands.
*pronates your theropod arms *SNAP*
One of my favourite theropod clades. The only large predatory theropods to rely on their arms and not their jaws to kill prey.
Assuming the assumptions are true...
@@Triggernlfrl those arms served something at least we have only two theropod clades with larger arms
@@Triggernlfrlwhen you assume you make a ASS out of U and ME😂
Based on what we know about them, they might’ve exerted greater pressure on Sauropod young than then even their rivals the Carnosaurs
Are spinosaurs not included in that group?
Argentina: Wanna see me shake up the entire theropod order?
Argentina: *Wanna see me do it again?*
Megaraptors are and absolute classification nightmare indeed. Hopefully more and more species should help the paleontologists to finally conclude whether if megaraptors belong to their own genera or directly related to other generas
But they are so beautiful ❤️
Indeed. I'd like to see a complete skeleton of a megaraptoran discovered, or at least one on par with Sue and the Wankel T. rex in regards to completeness.
@@Saberrex1 pretty agree with you
Preach! They are unique @@TyrannusDante
@@Saberrex1the Tyrannosaurus rex was much bigger than megaraptors(less sophisticated and probably mostly scavengers)
Imagine what Megaraptoran species could be found in Antarctica!
I mean Australia was connected to Antarctica and Australian had Austrolovernator
so....they could be more there
@@Geothermic They would most definitely have been present in Antarctica. Antarctica basically functioned as something of a link between East Gondwana (Australia) and West Gondwana (South America). Given that Megaraptorans are present in both east and west it's more or less certain they were present in Antarctica as well.
How can someone excavate fossils in deep ice without falling in the ocean?.
@@justinarzola4584The fossils would be in the stone layers below the ice, also not limited to the coast line.
@@seanmckelvey6618 my dumbass thought Imperobator was a megaraptor
One of my absolute favorite group of non-avian theropods (second only to therizinosaurians). Thank you for covering these amazing dinosaurs!
One of my favourites too! I should really do some more videos on Therizinosaurs 😊
Looks like you like big claws haha
@@QbliviensI suppose so! Haha
@@BenGThomas,I'm making a new series coming soon on the genius primate channel, is called the family tree of phylogenetics, and the first episode features dinosaur king
the family tree of phylogenetics teaser trailer / Genius primate
th-cam.com/video/4iy_hzEgBlI/w-d-xo.html
Something I just realized is that raptorians having only one big slashing claw is very logical. One slashing edge is more efficient than multiple ones, allowing to focus entire strength of the animal on a single "point" for deeper strikes.
Megaraptorians having multiple big claws might either mean that their hunting tactics weren't as focused on inflicting big slashing wounds or they didn't need such comparatively big claws to damage internal tissue of their prey.
Probably mostly scavengers
@@rodrigopinto6676 Pure Scavenger behavior is not widely known in the animal kingdom outside of highly motile and fairly small bodied animals insects and birds, opportunistic scavenger behavior is widely distributed among animal clades including not just carnivores but even many animals which are otherwise herbivorous so its safe to assume they were partly scavengers but scavenging seems unlikely to drive the kind of specialization seen in this clade.
@@Dragrath1food is food
I appreciate that in your videos you get into detail but also keep it accessible enough that those of us who aren't students or professionals in Paleontology can still follow & learn from your content. Thanks for keeping my love of extinct creatures alive. ❤️
Animals are a dead end interest because they don't go anywhere and you can't actually do anything with them aside from ugly ones. The experience builds to nothing, unless you could actually be one.
Totally wild that in only 25 years it went from... new kind of dinosaur... to a dozen species. That's a veritable avalanche of discoveries. It makes me wonder if some of these are really synonyms, but I would hope that at this point naming new species is more rigorous than it used to be.
there’s a lot of guessing, if paleontologists are keepin it real
Its so good to see such an in depth video on my favorite group of theropods. I really hope that in the future we discover even bigger members of this clade!
everyone wants to find the next big boy but those conjugated and bizarre psychological necessities don't lead to anything and are bad because 9/10 they can't even be found, tyrannosaurus rex is a very unappealing dinosaur. You can see the dumbness in the countenance of something like aoniraptor instead of troodon. The eyes are smaller and you can tell at once it lacks binocular vision, it's a dim thing. Stop overrating the intelligence of animals you like.
You never fail to impress , Ben . Hope you're doing well and staying safe . And I love the new Background Studio .
I love hearing about megaraptorans, there's so much scattered and contradictory info that it's really difficult to find any good solid history for them. Great video as always man!
megaraptors, who cares, you have a model of them? fated to be in movies, fated to be featured in a story, but that's as far as it goes isn't it it lacks dynamic motion, dynamic motion is necessary, is it? I don't know, probably
The megaraptors are a fascinating group of dinosaurs. 🦖🦅
Exactly what I needed!
Really wish there was a good book regarding this group.
Great video as always and have to say it’s great to see a young guy like this putting out such excellent videos on the subject. A great inspiration for my sons.
I think your sons would find more inspiration in the two truths of life
1. make it unique
2. make it violent
those are the only solutions to having a purposeful life, believe it or not, the third is the social sphere but that breeds thoroughly unenviable human life.
I think megaraptors were basically like terrestrial birds of prey: they chased down smaller prey then used their meat hook claws to snatch them up when they got within striking distance. The curvature of the claws seems to support this. I wonder also if some biomechanical study could be done to see if the arms would support being shot out forwards like this
I agree, seems like with their powerful arms, huge claws but what seem like comparatively kind of weak jaws & teeth that they mostly hunted prey smaller than themselves and just grabbed and ripped them apart. I think the fact that they seem to have had quite long and gracile legs probably means they were pretty solid runners, which might be more support for the idea of them hunting smaller prey animals.
The more I learn about the diversity of animals alive during the Age of Dinosaurs, the more I realize how lucky we are to be here. Without that asteroid impact, and possibly the Decan Trap eruptions, there’s no possibility for the rise of mammals. And if you look at the what mankind is doing to the planet, that asteroid impact can be seen as the most consequential event in all of earth’s history.
Btw, I love your ability to pronounce all those names.
I love that the biggest and scariest Megaraptor is named Maip.
And one of the smaller ones is australovinator
It sounds really goofy but it's even more odd and more goofy when you realize Maip means "the shadow of death that kills with cold wind, and has a large chest"
Tyrannosaurs 🤝 Megaraptorans = Beating the shit out of Carcharodontosaurs of their dominance
King and queen
what? Biggest tyrannosaur during the extinction of the carcharodontosaurs was smaller than a grizzly lol, they were not the reason the carcharodontosaurs went extinct. Also, besides north america, there is no overlap in range between carcharodontosaurs and tyrannosaur ancestors.
@@neptuneai8168 Siats
@@Gabriel-bt7ix Bro do some reading. Siat's is known from about 8-9 vertebrae and partial pubic bone. We have absolutely no idea what it is and there is no reason to believe it is a tyrannosaur.
@@neptuneai8168 There is speculation that Siats may be a Megaraptoran, or at least related, which is what I believe they were implying.
I think that it's becoming increasingly apparent that they place somewhere in the Coelurosauria, perhaps closely linked to the Tyrannosaur line, which would be very interesting if true. These guys have easily become some of my favorite dinosaurs, not only because of how cool they are, but also because of how mysterious they are.
Mystery? Stop loving mystery, you're only seting yourself up for disappointment when the mystery is solved. everything was a mystery before your era at some point. Pick up a bird who's never seen a human and take them inside and consider how genuinely paranormal that experience is for it, but you've been robbed of it, an early caveman seeing a beached and barely lucid porpoise might as well be seeing bigfoot, but real.
This channel is simply fantastic. Your direct involvement in this field shows through in your extremely insightful delivery of the information, while your understanding of internet culture and modern sensibilities makes it digestible and not just a wall of text.
Thank you so much! That really means a lot to me :)
Glad you're posting these long form videos regularly again.
Sop wasint gojn your life
but wha can you odo?
waste time, build a thing, autistic tangents, what does it amount to, what can be beheld? Not much. Power, there is no power, no powr nor agency nor nothing.
Not even humans, even vehicles are losing agency. Ever ince alsexander the great we have taken that which is important and put it away from us.
Those arms and claws look just right for climbing up sauropods.
Especially for bursting all those balloons! :)
I would say that more complete fossils of Siats and Chilantaisaurus would help, but i guess in this case literally anything would help with classification
Siats siats siats grow up no one is going to beat a rex and no one needs to becaus if you learned to walk you'd be there already but your stuck because you're not creatively inclined
@@neo-filthyfrank1347 wtf is wrong with you?
Oh yea, since you mentioned that no one beats Tyrannosaurus (you said Rex because you think that there is only 1 rex but not realizing that when animal have rex in its name it doesnt make it anything special (classic T.rex fan)) let me introduce you to Edmontosaurus annectens, Shantungosaurus, Triceratopses, Torosaurus, Ankykosaurus, Deinosuchuses, Purussaurus, hundreds of sauropods, Eotriceratops, straight-tusked elephant, Barsboldia, Charonosaurus, Saichania, Saurolophus angustirostris, Pentaceratops, Titanoceratops, Alcovasaurus, Dancentrurus, Miragaia, Stegosaurus ungulatus, Giganotosaurus (which is literally 50/50 match) and more hadrosaurids, ceratopsids, ankylosaurids and stegosaurids (and thats only for biggest Tyrannosaurus specimens)
@@neo-filthyfrank1347 lol autist
Your quality work, is always, impressive. Without a doubt, this is my favourite channel for Paleontology knowledge. Congratulations.
Excellent work, keep it up
such an amazingly cool group to be closer related to birds than allosauroids ... such unique dinosaurs
When I think of the megaraptorans and I can’t help but think of tales of kaimere
Always happy to see Carnegie Museum of Natural History on these videos 😊
Megaraptor, a name you'd think is made up if you didn't know better.
Thank you for helping me know better about them.
Excellent video! This channel is definitely worth watching! 🎉😊
I thought "Maip" was a silly name for a dinosaur... until I looked up what it meant! 😮
😂
Does it mean big penis?
You also have to look up what "Gualicho" means. Is a commonly used slang in Argentina.
I love the video, I am still of the opinion that both Chilantaisaurus and Siats are not Megaraptorids, however there is still not enough known of those two to conclude what their relationship is. Only time and more research will tell.
Siats seems unlikely to be one to me, if only because of it's geographic location. Unless we're dealing with a ghost lineage of Megaraptorids in the northern hemisphere it seems like they were primarily confined to the southern landmasses.
@@seanmckelvey6618 yeah, that is what I thought, in addition it's size would be abnormal for the group when Siats was in existence, but it would not be strange for any Allosauroid, this is also why I included Chilantaisaurus. All I can hope for is that there is another fossil specimen that can be referred to the holotypes.
Regardless of their phylogenetical position one thing is sure about Megaraptors: they never skip an arm day!
Thank you for introducing me to more dinosaurs I knew nothing about.
As a Utahan everything Raptor related is approved.
South America would have been a death gauntlet on a continental scale 😂
Great video, as always it takes me ages to watch as I'm constantly stopping and looking up each one online! So many tabs! haha 😅 I've been a follower for some years now, and I'm so glad to watch you progress so much in the last few, your longer content is also very interesting, the Shark Week Special was great.
Thank you for an exellent and superb video. - As far as I remember there was found and described a ca 45 cm long and curved claw from probably a forelimb, and HUGE FINGERCLAW from a Dinosaur in South America some years ago -. In my and many others opinion it must have come from an enormeous Megaraptor.. - A question to you Ben; - Do you know something about this enormeous 45 cm Claw and about the "owner" of this Claw ???
Why don't you just built your own dinosaur then? If you're going to sweat about size so much? Back to carnivora buddy.
It was only a question. - This claw was descibed some years ago. It was found somewhere in South America. - It was descibed in a television documentary that I saw some years ago. - @@neo-filthyfrank1347
Excellent and very helpful overview of a fascinating group. Keep up the good work! 🙂🖤
Hate comments are way more entertaining to read than positive ones
Megaraptorans, although more related to tyrannosauroids (probably), are like the alternate versions of dromaeosaurids.
This is why big birds will always be with us. This body plan just works 😎
An interesting summation of the current problems with these theropods. We remember the Eotyrannus paper you refer to well, we at Everything Dinosaur helped to fund it.
Thank you, and that's amazing the Eotyrannus paper is a fantastic bit of research! Also I just wanted to say that I love your website, the Collecta Neovenator and Beasts of the Mesozoic Styracosaurus behind me in the video were bought through your site! :)
love how you included Neovenator figure by CollectA on the background 😉
Damn. I learned so much from this episode!!!❤❤❤
All I can say is that when I saw 2 large claws and a much smaller one, I assumed something that branched off from a common ancestor of the tyrannosaurs somewhere between the jurassic and cretaceous.
They share quite a bit in common with the early Tyrannosaurs, seems much more likely to me that they're Coelurosaurs at the very least, and probably quite closely related to the Tyrannosaurs. The limited anatomy we have so far for these animals does not scream Allosaur to me at all.
You actually didn't mention Megaraptor was thought to be a dromaeosaur because it's claw looked for the toes until it's known to have a big claw for hands like Spinosaurids.
I'm surprised Bahariasaurus wasn’t mentioned, but then again i see why its left out.
Great video guys about a subject which I find absolutely fascinating + great for the Isle of Wight to get a mention... twice 😮❤
Vamos Argentina, Carajo!!!
Maip is My Favorite Member of this group and the most complete Giant megaraptor ever found so far. So I wonder if Africa and other continents even Australia had giant megaraptors in the late Cretaceous era as well that have yet to be discovered, and It just makes me curious just wonder if they'll be even as big as Maip. Maybe even Australia has a group of Megaraptorids that took over as super carnivores in the late Cretaceous who knows right?
An actual dinosaur fight would look boring from the perspective of a JW fanboy. The fanboy thinks they'll be flopping all over each other but really they are very line-y and conscious of their position, their agility is probably astonishgly less when compared to mammals or similar mass or volume.
Very interesting video about evolution and classification of megaraptoroids especially with them being an early radiation of tyrannosaurids. I have two questions.
1. How did megaraptors become geographically restricted to South America at the end of the Cretaceous?
2. Curiously there does not seem be have been any megaraptors found in Africa. Could it be that we have not been looking hard enough? If so, could megaraptors in Africa have undergone a similar radiation as in South America given the late cretaceous extinction of Charcarodontosaurus in Africa like in South America?
I’m sure they existed in Africa but we haven’t found any fossils yet .
We know very little about Late Cretaceous Africa so who knows , maybe a 12M long Megaraptor is waiting to be discovered
@@lightman3581 Thanks for answering.
Ben! excelent video! Love to see my Maip render featured! I work in Fernando Nova´s Lab, if you want some imagery or some information on Argentinian Dinosaurs just write me! We also have news coming in a few days 👀
Oh my gosh that's so exciting. That's so amazing that you got to work with the legendary Fernando Novas.
Also your Maip render is fantastic, I hope you will make a documentary with it...if only someone had the interest and money though...
Whoa! Fascinating and thorough presentation!!
Fantastic ! I worked with Matt White, the palaeo who described the Australovenator, banjo in Queensland at the AAOD museum. Did guided tours accompanied by Banjo and the sauropod it was found with, Matilda the Diamantinasaurus
AWESOME video man! I've been a dino-nerd since I was a kid & just learned tons!
This was a really fantastic video! Thank you for all the fascinating information!
I know it's outta place but I can't wait for Jurassic Park to retcon Indominus Rex to have primarily megaraptor gene lol
You to also think they are smaller me to ❤❤❤
Thank you for this well presented and summarized research.
Very cool, not just the fossil history but the recent history of our reconstructions. Would be nice if we could delve in what decisions and observations go into placing fossils among groups, clades and so on.
Why don't you just recreate the whole damn thing then huh? Just 3D bring a megaraptor bro, go ahead, I'm sure you can do it, I'm sure you can do it, but how does it move? These are the questions of the future. You can't see it but I can. Your heart has to want to go there, that's why modern movies resemble fanfiction so much.
One correction. Siats meekerorum is from the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation more specifically the Mussentuchit Member which is the last member of that geological sequence.
The Mussentuchit Wash site is dated to 96 to 94 Ma, which puts Siats in the very beginning of the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian stage). Early-Late Cretaceous boundary is 100.5 Ma.
I understand there would be some overlap with regard to what tyrannosaridae and megaraptorans preyed on, but would it be reasonable to assume that their evolution and hunting strategies were developed based on their preferred prey type? i.e it's hard to imagine a megaraptoran dealing with armored herbivores the same way a bone-crushing bite would. If that is true, their decline would be rooted in the decline of their prey items, meaning that tyrannosaurs rose to prominence (and specialization) thanks to an increase in their prey items. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.
what on earth are you even asking? 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 years is a long time, and the mites on your skin would evolve into new life, sapient life even, within a few million years only. You would have company sooner than you think. You know how dumb shows for kids show villains just materializing out of nothing? That's actually how it works on long enough timescales.
I barely know the channel and I liked the information and explanation about the Megaraptorid.
13:37 If you've ever seen the animated series "Primal", this reconstruction makes you wonder, what does this look like?
I’m a simple man, I see Megaraptorans, I watch the video and like
Everything living in South America (Argentina) was freaking massive😂
Excellent presentation, keep up the good work.
thank you for this informative video about this less-popular and under-discussed group!
I was able to follow the video, but, by the time it was finished, the trail was so convoluted that I'm not quite certain what I just watched. It did succeed in undermining what I had always assumed about Theropods, though.
Remember when they thought the Megaraptor was just a giant dromeosaur.
Argentina! I hope you brought enough megaraptorans to share with the whole class...
australovenator is my favourite dinosaur as it's a relatively important dinosaur from my home country
thanks for clearing this up
Thank you very much for this video!
You really do deep dives into these animals and I was watching you do the video about the little dinosaur that they have the best idea of how it lookedcand you took a turn down the "cloaca route" which had me laughing, imagining you doing that part of your video in the museum! I had to subscribe, having watched several of your videos and enjoying them. What is going on in Argentina? They seem to be really into paleontology.
Keep in mind during the early cretececous south america and africa were much closer together. Sigilimassasarusu and spinosaurus and oxalia could all be friends or they could be different who the hell knows. Well the aliens there probably know. Stuck in that backwater lost in time and space. Would you like to meet God? He's in the sky, and he doesn't know you exist. The idiot machine brought you back here. In order to jump the recreation would have to probabalistically dominate the thing's existence to begin with. Or maybe not, but it would have to dominate the next step. But how? Fragmentation? You can't actually die you know.
Allways nice when they upload!
Bro, I want that shirt.
I wonder if we have anything resembling a half way complete skull for any animal that we're pretty certain is a megaraptorid.
Aerosteon is one of my favorite dinosaur names
Wow ! A lot to cover. I've wondered if Tyrannosaurs just wounded their pray and followed them until they died or became too weak. The small arm could help them get closer to their prey for biting . Bipedal seems to be a great aid for the success of these hunters. Did it increase their speed or range ( I'm guessing yes) but it seems there must have been many reasons hunters needed to adapt...otherwise they would have not needed a bipedal adaption. The existence of so many carnivores makes me guess there must have been a large amount of prey. ... ... we live in a world where carnivores have few meat sources that they exploit because of where they live. . Was that case then ? I've always thought the world then was ( like the ocean) an Eat anything you can get in your mouth... but maybe some were very specialized to their prey. Sorry for rambling. Thank for covering a vast subject. Good job.
The Tyrannosaurus rex was much bigger than megaraptors
Yeah I know . Thanks @@rodrigopinto6676
@@rodrigopinto6676Ok, and?
@@kade-qt1zu T. rex weight around 10/11 tons compared to megaraptor only 3/4 tons the difference is crazy.!
T Rex was probably not heavier than 7/8 tons ( max).
and here I thought spinosaurus was the only one they couldn't make up their minds about
Hope we get a sort of definitive answer on the Megaraptoran phylogeny
But what was their ecological relation to Abelisaurs?
Because they did share their habitat, but who hunted what and did they rival for prey?
Maybe they had different niches so they wouldn’t compete very often
@@lightman3581 ofc, but who filled what niche? Both could be apex predators
@@edgeofsanity9111 I think Megaraptorans took the huge predator niche and hunted both sauropods and other large herbivores with which it shared it’s environment but this is speculation.
The reason why i think this may had happened it’s because a Late Cretaceous South American Abelosaurid named Carnotaurus took the niche of fast running predator like the cheetahs today
@@lightman3581 that's a fair point, but we don't know much about other Abelisaurids yet
I think Megaraptorids would hunt Titanosaurs (the longs arms and sharp claws might help grab on such big creatures).
Abelisaurids would hunt Hadrosaurs (the streamlined bodyplan could catch up and they bite them like how lions do wildebeast).
So niche partitioning.
I really hope there are many volcanic burials still to be discovered around the world with enough fossils to put all this to rest in all categories.
there aren't but okay
Excellent, Ben.
I like your logo design with your cartoons
Not that we've got the option atm but DNA would be fascinating re: stuff like the convergence of the two finger mod... some mods are going to be more reliable with fewer code changes.... feedback with actual environmental demands 🤯
Australovenator will be the name I'll ask them to print on my fake driving license.
Megaraptors:
The Semaphore Specialists of the Dinosaur World.
So you're telling me if the dinosaurs hadnt gone extinct, the megaraptors would have taken over the world by starting to use tools
Subscribed. 🦖
I may or may not be using some of this info as inspiration for a D&D game I'm preparing that is just wild West with dinosaurs.
Australovenator is a badass name
One of the biggest advantages of bipedalism is that it frees an animal's arms, yet there were only around 3 groups of large theropods to capitalize on that. Weird.
Amazing video! Also I need that tyrannosaurus T-shirt! Anyone got a link to where you can find it?
I love playing megaraptor on Beasts of Bermuda, they look dang amazing
As a confirmed abelisaurid, I’d like to say dinosaurs like megaraptors are cool even if they have bigger arms than us and are a fascinating dino friend :)
Is there somewhere online I can find a diagram that shows the progression from Tyrannosauroid to Tyrannosaurid? (I realize other branchings may be theoretical)
Lythronax on Wikipedia might be a good place to start?
Probably my favorite group of dinosaurs
During your videos you often show charts showing the relationships between various dinosaurs. For a neophyte like myself these are very interesting and instructive, but since they are only shown for a minute or two at best it is impossible to really gain much information from them. Could you devote an episode to these diagrams? That way they could be downloaded and referred to during further videos. I know there must be a billion of them considering the huge number of dinosaurs you discuss, but maybe you could pick out the ones for the common (or extremely uncommon) species.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can hear a Bllue Meanie saying, "Argentina?"
Am i the only one that thinks that well developed arm strength and range of motion paired with large talons could be for navigation of difficult more vertical terrain?
You mean like climbing cliffs and stuff?
@@kade-qt1zu not cliffs per say but mountainous areas have of the megaraptors shown have arms long enough that it can't be ruled out