Palaeontologists from the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences say they have found the 70-million-year-old remains of a megaraptor, making it one of the last carnivorous dinosaurs to inhabit the earth.
"This is the moment, 65 million years ago, when the extinction of the dinosaurs occurs, and this new megaraptor that we now have to study would be one of the last representatives of this group," Fernando Novas, the palaeontologist in charge of the project, told Reuters.
Unlike the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the megaraptors were slimmer and built for speed, with long tails that allowed them to keep their balance.
"The defining characteristic of the megaraptors was that they had very long arms and that their thumb ended in a claw of approximately 40 centimetres," allowing them to catch their prey, he said.
The Museum said the megaraptor's arms were its chief weapon, as opposed to the Velociraptor or Tyrannosaurus rex's reliance on their jaws.