Ancient relative of fearsome predator is unearthed on the Isle of Wight
The bird-like dinosaur used brute strength to overcome its prey
Last updated 21st Dec 2021
A new bird-like dinosaur that used brute strength to overcome its prey has been found by palaeontologists combing through fossils found on the Isle of Wight.
The new animal has been named Vectiraptor greeni after local collector Mick Green who discovered its bones after they became washed from the rocks on the island’s south coast.
It was an older, more heavily built, relative of the predator Velociraptor.
The fearsome animal was about the size of a wolf, about 3 metres (10 feet) long, from nose to tail, and would have used huge slashing talons on its feet to dispatch its prey. Its finely serrated teeth were then used to bite off pieces of the kill.
The dinosaur would have prowled through the forests that covered the land in the Early Cretaceous, 125 million years ago.
It died and lay buried until 2004, when storms and waves eroded away the rocks that had kept its bones hidden.
Yet another 20 years passed before scientists from the Universities of Bath and Portsmouth studied the fossils and made the surprising find that the bones represented a new species.
Vectiraptor belonged to a group of dinosaurs called dromaeosaurs, or raptors. These bird-like dinosaurs were specialist hunters and, like their modern-day avian relatives, were covered in long feathers.
Their jaws were full of blade-like, serrated teeth and they had huge scythe-shaped claws on their feet, used to slash at their prey, causing it to rapidly bleed to death.
Vectiraptor greeni was named after amateur paleontologist Mick Green, who discovered the remains in in 2004 but didn’t appreciate the importance of his find until he was forced by ill-health to stop collecting fossils in 2012.
He then turned his attention to prising the dinosaur bones free from the hard ironstone surrounding them.
One day, chatting over a beer, he showed the fossils to Isle of Wight palaeontologist Megan Jacobs and Dr Longrich who puzzled over them, and at first struggled to make sense of them, until they noticed tell-tale similarities to other raptors.
Mr Green allowed the bones to be studied, and they turned out to represent a new genus and species.
The bones have now been donated to the Dinosaur Isle Museum in Sandown.