Dakotaraptor

Dakotaraptor (meaning “thief from Dakota”) is a potentially chimaeric genus of large dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in western North America during the Late Cretaceous period. The remains have been found in the Maastrichtian-aged Hell Creek Formation, dated to the very end of the Mesozoic era, making Dakotaraptor one of the last surviving dromaeosaurids. The remains of D. steini were discovered in a multi-species bonebed. Elements of the holotype and referred specimens were later found to belong to trionychid turtles and further analysis of potential non-dromaeosaurid affinities of the holotype and referred material have not yet been conducted. Phylogenetic analyses of D. steini place it in a variety of positions within Dromaeosauridae. In 2005, paleontologist Robert DePalma in Harding County, South Dakota discovered a fluvial bonebed bearing the remains of a variety of dinosaurian and non-dinosaurian remains, which yielded a partial skeleton attributed by DePalma to a large dromaeosaurid. Subsequently, the same site produced additional dromaeosaurid remains. In 2015, the type species Dakotaraptor steini was named and described by Robert A. DePalma, David A. Burnham, Larry Dean Martin, Peter Lars Larson, and Robert Thomas Bakker. The generic name, Dakotaraptor, combines a reference to South Dakota and the Dakota people with the Latin word raptor, meaning "plunderer". The specific name, steini, honors paleontologist Walter W. Stein. Dakotaraptor was one of eighteen dinosaur taxa from 2015 to be described in open access or free-to-read journals. The holotype, PBMNH.P.10.113.T, was found in a sandstone layer of the upper Hell Creek Formation, dating to the late Maastrichtian. It consists of a partial skeleton of an adult individual, albeit without a skull. It contains a piece of a back vertebra, ten tail vertebrae, both humeri, both ulnae, both radii, the first and second right metacarpals, three claws of the left hand, a right thighbone, both shinbones, a left astragalus bone, a left calcaneum, the left second, third and fourth metatarsal, the right fourth metatarsal, and the second and third claw of the right foot.