MEANING: Australian thief
PERIOD: Middle Jurassic
CONTINENT: Australia
Based on limited fossil evidence, Ozraptor seems likely to be an abelisauroid, though this is unknown with much certainty. This small theropod is estimated to have grown to around 2 m in length, and is thought to have been a fast hunter. Ozraptor is among the oldest known Australian dinosaurs, and possibly the oldest known abelisauroid.
Ozraptor is from the Jurassic. The Jurassic is a geologic period that spanned from the end of the Triassic, 201 million y ears ago, to the beginning of the Cretaceous, 145 million years ago. It is the middle period of the Mesozoic Era. The start of the Jurassic was marked by the major Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. The end, however, has no clear boundary with the Cretaceous. By the beginning of the Jurassic, Pangea had begun rifting into two landmasses: Laurasia and Gondwana, and the climate was warm with no ice caps. Life on land was dominated by dinosaurs, and the first birds appeared, evolving from a branch of theropods. The oceans were inhabited by marine reptiles, while pterosaurs were the dominant flying vertebrates.
Ozraptor is a theropod. Theropods are dinosaurs that are characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally carnivorous, although a number of theropod groups evolved to become herbivores and omnivores. Theropods first appeared during the Carnian age of the late Triassic period and included all the large terrestrial carnivores from the Early Jurassic until at least the close of the Cretaceous. In the Jurassic, birds evolved from small specialized theropods, and are today represented by about 10,500 living species.