Vectiraptor greeni sounds like it would make a great movie villain.
It’s helping scientists expand the story of dinosaurs in the UK.
The fierce predator dates back to over 100 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous.
It’s an older relative of velociraptors, which rose to fame with the Jurassic Park movies.
A team of paleontologists published apaper on the new species in the journal Cretaceous Researchthis month.
The researchers described the vectiraptor based on fossilized vertebrae and hip parts found on the Isle of Wight.
Vectiraptor greeni is named for a local fossil collector, Mick Green, who originally found the bones.
The animal would have roamed in a forest environment and was likely an effective predator.
“The bones are thick-walled and massive.
It clearly didn’t hunt small prey, but animals as large or larger than itself.”
