Ozraptor
First named dinosaur from Western Australia.
It is notable as both the first Jurassic theropod dinosaur bone discovered in Australia and the first Western Australian dinosaur to receive a formal name.
Quick Facts
- Species
- subotaii
Facts from the source article.
Discovery and naming
In 1966, four Year 12 geology students from Scotch College discovered a fossil during a field trip at the Bringo Railway Cutting site near Geraldton. They brought it to University of Western Australia professor Rex Prider, who arranged for a cast to be sent to the British Museum of Natural History in London. There, experts initially believed it came from an extinct turtle. In the 1990s, after John Albert Long and Ralph Molnar prepared the bone from its surrounding rock, they reclassified it as the shinbone of a theropod dinosaur. Long and Molnar formally named and described the only species, Ozraptor subotaii, in 1998. The genus name blends "Ozzies," a nickname for Australians, with the Latin raptor, meaning "seizer." The species name honors Subotai, the swift thief and archer from the film Conan the Barbarian. The holotype, labeled UWA 82469, is the lower end of a left tibia, measuring 8 centimeters long and 4 centimeters wide at its base. From this, scientists estimated the full shinbone was about 17 to 20 centimeters long, and the entire dinosaur roughly 2 meters in length. Three unique features distinguish it: the ascending process of the astragalus was rectangular with a straight top edge, the astragalar facet had a vertical ridge, and the medial condyle was weakly developed. Found in the Colalura Sandstone, which dates to the middle Bajocian stage around 169 million years ago, Ozraptor is one of the oldest known Australian dinosaurs, alongside Rhoetosaurus.
Classification
Ozraptor is known from just a single partial leg bone, making its classification uncertain. When first described in 1998, researchers could only assign it to Theropoda incertae sedis. In 2004, Thomas Holtz placed it within Avetheropoda. A 2005 study by Oliver Rauhut proposed it belonged to Abelisauroidea, based on a vertical median ridge on the astragalar groove, which would have made it the oldest abelisauroid known. Rauhut later determined that these features are not exclusive to abelisaurs, so Ozraptor can only be classified as Theropoda indet.
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