150 million-year-old dinosaur unearthed in Argentina

May 4, 2007
150 million-year-old dinosaur unearthed in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - Paleontologists unearthed a flesh-eating dinosaur some 150 million years old in southern Argentina with all its joints in place, the first time such a beast has been dug up so intact, one of the finders told AFP on Friday.

The seven-meter (23-foot) tall, two-legged dinosaur, dubbed the Condorraptor, was found fossilized with parts of its jaw and head showing in rock near the village of Cerro Condor in Patagonia, at a site where paleontologists had been working for five years.

"It is an unprecedented discovery. It is the first time in the world that a carnivorous dinosaur of the Middle Jurassic period has been found fully jointed," said Pablo Puerta, a paleontologist at the Egidio Feruglio museum in the town of Trelew.