| Luanchuanraptor Fossil range: Late Cretaceous | |
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| Scientific classification
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Luanchuanraptor | |
Luanchuanraptor (meaning "Luanchuan thief") is an extinct genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of China. It is based on a partial skeleton from the Qiupa Formation in Luanchuan, Henan. The fossil material is cataloged as 4HIII-0100 in the Henan Geological Museum and includes four teeth, one frontal, a neck vertebra, one or two back vertebrae, seventeen tail vertebrae, ribs, chevrons, a humerus (upper arm bone), claw and finger bones, partial shoulder and pelvic girdles, and other fragmentary bones from a moderately-sized dromaeosaurid. It represents the first Asian dromaeosaurid found outside of northeastern China or the Gobi Desert. The type species is L. henanensis, described by Lü et al in 2007.[1]
Description[]
Luanchuanraptor were moderate-sized dromaeosaurs, estimated at 1.1 to 1.8 m (3.6 to 5.9 ft) long with weights from 2.2 to 2.5 kg (4.9 to 5.5 lb). However, the individual 41HIII-0100 preserves an unfused frontal, meaning that it was not a fully-grown animal at the time of death and therefore, they reached slightly larger sizes.
They can be recognised from other dromaeosaur taxa in having a very stiff tail tip as indicated by the short neural spines of the caudal vertebrae, connected anterior chevrons, some posterior caudals with depressions near the neural spine, stocky proximal and posterior end of the chevrons, and a large opening on the coracoid.
Classification[]
Lü and colleagues assigned Luanchuanraptor to the Dromaeosauridae based on the recurved, serrated and laterally flattened teeth, the continuous parapophyses on dorsal vertebrae, and the elongate caudal prezygapophyses. The genus has been considered to pertain to the Averaptora by Agnolín and Novas, but this suggestion is not widely followed. The recently performed phylogenetic analysis for the Dromaeosauridae by Hartman et al. 2019 recovers Luanchuanraptor as a velociraptorine being the sister taxon of Adasaurus. Below is the obtained result for the Eudromaeosauria:
| Eudromaeosauria |
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Paleoenvironment[]
References[]
- ^ Lü, J.-C.; Xu, L.; Zhang, X.-L.; Ji, Q.; Jia, S.-H.; Hu, W.-Y.; Zhang, J.-M.; and Wu, Y.-H. (2007). "New dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Qiupa Formation of Luanchuan area, western Henan, China". Geological Bulletin of China 26 (7): 777–786.
