Fossils of largest theropod to date found in Australia

[brontosauruschuck]

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-fossils-largest-theropod-date-australia.html

I was under the impression that the whole of Australia is in emergency-mode, but somehow some folks found time to find a big ol' terrible lizard. I'm glad there's some good news coming from down under!

[suspsy]

It would be great if if could be determined whether or not Australovenator and Rapator are one and the same.

[triceratops83]

I was under the impression that the whole of Australia is in emergency-mode, but somehow some folks found time to find a big ol' terrible lizard. I'm glad there's some good news coming from down under!

Winton should be pretty safe from the bushfires - it's basically desert out there. But it'll be tough for the farmers there what with the
drought. Summer for the last couple of years here on the east coast starts with drought and bushfires, then moves straight into cyclones and floods.

Hopefully this find will add more to the appearance of Australovenator (I'm assuming that's what it is). Despite the well known paleoart there's not much material assigned to the holotype.

[Halichoeres]

And the paper is open access

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.191462

[austrosaurus]

It would be great if if could be determined whether or not Australovenator and Rapator are one and the same.

Quoted from Wikipedia:

With the discovery of Australovenator, which had a similar metacarpal, Rapator was recognized as a probable megaraptoran. In fact, Australovenator and Rapator differ only in some small details of the bone and may be synonyms, though Agnolin and colleagues in 2010 considered Rapator a dubious genus (nomen dubium) due to its fragmentary nature.[7] However, White et al. found differences between the hand bone of Rapator and the equivalent bone of Australovenator, supporting the distinction between the two. They also noted that the two genera come from formations separated chronologically by about 10 million years, making them unlikely to be synonymous.[1]

[Libraraptor]

Okay, it´s about the biggest Australian theropod so far. The headline made me expect something else.

[Halichoeres]

Okay, it´s about the biggest Australian theropod so far. The headline made me expect something else.

Ha ha, I thought that too for a moment.