Argentina Identifies 3-Meter Fish-Eating Dinosaur Kank australis From 70 Million Years Ago
Updated
Updated · Sci.News · May 29
Argentina Identifies 3-Meter Fish-Eating Dinosaur Kank australis From 70 Million Years Ago
8 articles · Updated · Sci.News · May 29
Kank australis, a newly described 2.5-3 meter unenlagiid from Patagonia’s Chorrillo Formation, lived about 70 million years ago in freshwater wetlands and appears adapted for catching fish.
A cervical vertebra recovered in 2024 proved crucial to recognizing the fossils—first found in 2018 near El Calafate—as a distinct species, based on neck structures, ridged teeth and air-filled vertebrae.
Those traits, along with fish fossils found beside the remains, strengthen evidence that some South American unenlagiids were piscivores rather than mainly land-hunting "raptors" like Velociraptor.
The find also fills a Late Cretaceous gap between northern Patagonia and Antarctica, suggesting unenlagiids were spread across a broad range of South American latitudes before the end-Cretaceous extinction.
How did this fishing raptor survive alongside Patagonia's most formidable megaraptor?
Does this discovery prove dinosaur 'raptors' were far more specialized than we ever imagined?
How did a raptor with a heron’s neck hunt in the wetlands of ancient Patagonia?