Ptychotherates

An illustration of the extinct early carnivorous dinosaur Ptychotherates. It has a short deep snout, an s-shaped neck, arms with three clawed fingers, bird-like legs with three-toed feet, and a long tail. It's depicted with a speculative coat of fluffy protofeathers, and is colored brown and grey with a paler underside and bright yellow and red on its face.

Ptychotherates bucculentus was a herrerasaurian dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic, about 205 million years ago, in what is now New Mexico, USA.

Probably around 2m long (~6’6″), it had a short deep skull and massive cheekbones – unusual features for an early saurischian, and convergently similar to those of some later theropods.

Along with its close relatives Tawa, Chindesaurus, and Daemonosaurus (a grouping collectively known as “morphoraptorans”) it represents one of the latest-surviving known herrerasaurians, suggesting that these early-diverging carnivorous dinosaurs persisted in low-latitude regions until much closer to the end of the Triassic than previously thought.

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