This week we'll be checking out a mysterious little predator. Say hello to Pyroraptor olympius!
Pyroraptor was a meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Southern France and possibly other parts of Europe, including Northern Spain, during the late Cretaceous period, about 70.6 million years ago. When alive it would have measured roughly 5 feet (1.5m) long from snout to tail. The genus name translates to "Fire Thief" because its bones were discovered shortly after a forest fire it the area. The species name is in reference to the mountain, Monte Olympe, near where it was found.
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| Watercolor life reconstruction of Pyroraptor olympius by Christopher DiPiazza. |
Pyroraptor is unfortunately only known from scant fossil material, including a few limb bones, a few teeth, and the second toe claw. The teeth were curved, blade-like, and had serrations on both edges, an adaptation for slicing meat. The second toe claw is was long and hook-shaped, probably for pinning down prey. Despite not being much, this is still enough material to deduct that Pyroraptor was likely a kind of dromaeosaur, the bird-like predatory dinosaurs famous for having enlarged, retractable "killer claws" on the second digit of each foot. (Velociraptor and Deinonychus are the most famous examples of this family.) Based on other, better-preserved dromaeosaur specimens, we can also deduct that Pyroraptor would have almost certainly been covered in feathers in life, including long wing feathers on the hands and arms.
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| Photos of teeth assigned to Pyroraptor discovered in Spain from the 2015 paper by Angelica Torices et al. |
The part of Europe that included Pyroraptor's habitat would have been a series of islands during the late Cretaceous. The dinosaurs and other land animals that lived there likely would have been under different environmental pressures from those on the mainland, and therefore may have evolved differently. Pyroraptor's smaller size may have been an adaptation for surviving on small islands since prey may have been have been more limited. It also may have behaved differently, possibly using different hunting styles and exploiting different food sources compared to dromaeosaurs on the mainland. We can only guess, but it's fun to think about!
References
Allain, R., and Taquet, P. (2000). "A new genus of Dromaeosauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of France." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 20: 404-407. [June 27, 2000]
Csiki-Sava, Z.; Buffetaut, E.; Ősi, A.; Pereda-Suberbiola, X.; Brusatte, S.L. (2015). "Island life in the Cretaceous-faunal composition, biostratigraphy, evolution, and extinction of land-living vertebrates on the Late Cretaceous European archipelago". ZooKeys (469): 1–161.
Pei, Rui; Li, Quanguo; Meng, Qingjin; Gao, Ke-Qin; Norell, Mark A. (2014-12-22). "A New Specimen of Microraptor (Theropoda: Dromaeosauridae) from the Lower Cretaceous of Western Liaoning, China". American Museum Novitates (3821): 1–28.
Torices, Angelica. “Theropod Dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous of the South Pyrenees Basin of Spain.” Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 2013, https://doi.org/10.4202/app.2012.0121.
