新種の肉食恐竜の化石発見、「悪霊」と命名　アルゼンチン

【ブエノスアイレスＡＦＰ＝時事】アルゼンチンの古生物学者チームはこのほど、サンタクルス州で発掘された恐竜の化石が、当時の頂点捕食者だったとみられるメガラプトル類の新種のものであることが判明したと発表した。これまでに発見されたメガラプトル類としては最大級。（写真はメガラプトル類の化石の発見について語る古生物学者のマウロ・アランシアガ氏。アルゼンチンの首都ブエノスアイレスのアルゼンチン国立自然科学博物館にて）
　「マイプ・マクロソラックス」と名付けられた恐竜は、体重６トン、全長９～１０メートル、胴体の幅は１．２メートルと推測される。前足に鋭く湾曲した２本の長さ約４０センチのかぎ爪を持っていた。
　古生物学者のマウロ・アランシアガ氏によると、かぎ爪で小型恐竜を引き裂いて食べていたと考えられる。
　約７０００万年前の白亜紀後期に、当時は熱帯林だったパタゴニアに生息していた。
　マイプとは、パタゴニア地方の先住民アオニケンクの伝説に登場する「悪霊」の名前。科学誌「サイエンティフィック・リポーツ」に掲載された論文によると、アンデス山脈を吹く冷たい風で凍え死にさせる「死の影」と関連づけられる。
　国立自然科学博物館のフェルナンド・ノバス氏は、マイプは恐竜が絶滅した約６６００万年前に地球上に存在していた最後のメガラプトル類の一種だと説明した。
　アランシアガ氏によると、マイプはメガラプトル類としては、最も南で発掘された。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/05/06-15:41）

Argentine paleontologists have announced the discovery of an apex-predator dinosaur that measured three stories from nose to tail and eviscerated its prey with sharp, curved claws.
The six-ton giant, the largest megaraptor unearthed to date, fed on smaller dinosaurs that it ripped to shreds with its talons before digging into their intestines, paleontologist Mauro Aranciaga told AFP.
It would have been the apex predator of its time, said Aranciaga -- well deserving of its chilling scientific name Maip macrothorax.
The first part, Maip, is derived from an evil mythological figure of Patagonia's indigenous Aonikenk people.
The character was associated with the shadow of the death that kills with cold wind in the Andes mountains, according to a study reporting the find in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
The second part, macrothorax, refers to the enormous expanse of the creature's chest cavity -- some 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) wide.
- 'Childhood dream' -
The newly-identified monster measured nine to 10 meters in length, larger than any previously discovered type of megaraptor -- a group of flesh-eating giants that once roamed what is now South America, according to Aranciaga's team.
It lived about 70 million years ago towards the end of the Cretaceous period in what was then a tropical forest, long before the Andes mountain range and glaciers that now define Patagonia.
The killer reptile had two sharp, curved claws per front paw, each talon some 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) long.
Aranciaga, now 29, had the good fortune of finding the first piece of Maip on his first-ever professional expedition three years ago to Argentina's Santa Cruz province.
This led to months of meticulous digging, cleaning and classification of a large cache of bones: vertebrae as well as bits of rib, hip, tail and arm.
When I lifted the vertebra and saw that it had the characteristics of a megaraptor, it was really a huge thrill, recalled Aranciaga.
Somehow I fulfilled my childhood dream... finding a new fossil and it turning out to be a megaraptor: the group in which I specialize, he told AFP.
Maip was one of the last megaraptors to inhabit Earth before the dinosaurs went extinct about 66 million years ago, according to Fernando Novas of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences' Laboratory of Comparative Anatomy.
It is also the southernmost megaraptor ever found, added Aranciaga, a doctoral fellow at Argentina's National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet).