This is What Happens with Little Material

©T. Tischler

I am not sure who is in charge around here, but images are not uploading. I keep having to go and find the original URL's and that is obnoxious. It is also potentially dangerous on some sites because URL's can be changed to something horrendous; it has happened in the past. At any rate, we have here the material initially collected and described for Australovenator. As we can see here, there was no lying about the material being of a fragmentary nature and leaving a lot of unanswered questions. However, this is a fair bit of material compared to some other named and even well known dinosaurs, so it is not that amazing that a dinosaur has been described from it. Obviously the height estimate, which was made to the hip, was based off of actual evidence and the overall body shape was determined by extrapolating existing clues into the body we see in other illustrations.

©T. Tischler

The overall composition of most illustrations of Australovenator is that of a fairly nondescript theropod dinosaur with an almost Barynoyx-like claw on the hand. Whether this claw lead to the distinguishing of the megaraptors I could not honestly say; however, it is very "raptor-like" when we compare it to the pes claws of the deinonychosauroid maniraptorans (I may have just made up a word there, excuse my invention please). Regardless, as one of the surviving diagnostic features of the animal, it is a large indicator of the presence of an Australovenator skeleton. The general thought with a claw like that on the hand would be its employment as a weapon possibly akin in use to the pes claw of the maniraptorans that possessed a slicing/grappling claw. That would make this one heck of a grappling specialist bu without solid evidence of the dental structure of the animal we cannot say for sure that grappling and biting would have been a predation strategy. Perhaps, however, grappling and wrestling prey to the ground may remain a viable strategy; we need more evidence of muscular structure for this hypothesis though.

©Sergey Krasovskiy (http://atrox1.deviantart.com/)

Anyone notice the recurring theme with the orientation of Australovenator today? It really is not that subtle, but it is there. There is more depth and muscle structuring in this Australovenator. We can really see the agility and strength of the animal coming to life here. Subtle colors and striation of pigments along the back, for camouflage or species markings, and a nice overall look of strength seem to exude from this interpretation of the animal. Just look at the wonderfulness of it; soak it in.