Pyroraptor

Pyroraptor (meaning "fire thief") is an extinct genus of paravian dinosaur, probably a dromaeosaurid or unenlagiid, from the Late Cretaceous Ibero-Armorican island, of what is now southern France and northern Spain. It lived during the late Campanian and early Maastrichtian stages, approximately 83.5 to 70.6 million years ago. It is known from a single partial specimen that was found in Provence in 1992, after a forest fire. The animal was named Pyroraptor olympius by Allain and Taquet in 2000. The first remains of Pyroraptor olympius, or P. olympius, were discovered in southeastern France, at the La Boucharde locality of the Arc Basin in Provence. It was described and named by French paleontologists Ronan Allain and Philippe Taquet in 2000, the type species and so far the only species is Pyroraptor olympius. The generic name name comes from πῦρ (pûr, Greek for "fire") and raptor (Latin for "thief"), due to its remains being discovered after a forest fire that occurred in 1992. The specific name name is derived from Mont Olympe, a mountain in Provence at the foot of which the animal's remains were unearthed. The holotype specimen, MNHN BO001, consists of the second toe claw of the left foot. The assigned paratypes include the equivalent claw of the right foot; the left second metatarsal; another, more complete second toe claw; a right ulna (long forearm bone); and two teeth. Additional material from the Vitória Formation and the Tremp Group, both in Spain, was referred to Pyroraptor, including five pedal digits, one manual digit, a piece of a metacarpal, a right radius, a dorsal vertebra, and a tail vertebra. Some teeth from the Iberian peninsula of North Eastern Spain have been compared to those referred to Pyroraptor, suggesting that Pyroraptor may have also inhabited Spain; however, a 2022 reevaluation of these teeth states that they cannot be confidently assigned to Pyroraptor and may belong to a whole different variety of European dromaeosaurids. Finds of dromaeosaurid dinosaur remains are rare in Europe and typically provide little taxonomic information.