Australovenator wintonensis

Australovenator (meaning "southern hunter") is a genus of megaraptoran theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Winton Formation (Cenomanian, 95 million years ago) of Australia. Some specimens from the Albian-aged Eumeralla Formation and the Wonthaggi Formation may belong to Australovenator. It is known from partial cranial and postcranial remains, which were described in 2009 by Scott Hocknull and colleagues, although additional descriptions and analyses continue to be published. It is the most complete predatory dinosaur discovered in Australia. It has been suggested that Australovenator is a sister taxon to Fukuiraptor, although some phylogenetic analyses find it to be a more derived member of the Megaraptora, possibly being part of the main Megaraptoridae family itself.

== History of discovery == thumb|left|Silhouette with known skeletal elements. Australovenator is based on a theropod specimen (AODF 604), affectionately nicknamed "Banjo" after Banjo Paterson, which was found intermingled with the remains of the sauropod Diamantinasaurus matildae at the "Matilda site" (AODL 85). The parts of the holotype as it was initially described, which are held at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, consists of a left dentary, teeth, partial forelimbs and hindlimbs, a partial right ilium, ribs, and gastralia. Australovenator was described in 2009 by paleontologist Scott Hocknull of the Queensland Museum and colleagues. The type species is A. wintonensis, in reference to nearby Winton. Although the holotype was first discovered in 2006 and first described in 2009, the process of excavating the "Matilda site" is still ongoing, and papers describing new elements of the holotype are still being published. Additional arm elements of the holotype were described in 2012, more leg elements were described in 2013, and a right dentary was described in 2015. thumb|Life restoration For some time, Australovenator was considered to be within the same genus as another Australian Megaraptorid called Rapator. Rapator is based on a metacarpal first described by Friedrich von Huene during the early 1900s and prior to the recognition of Megaraptora, it was considered to be either an alvarezsaurid or an intermediate theropod. After the discovery of Australovenator, some scientists noted the similarity between Rapator and Australovenator. While Hocknull et al. (2009) identified a few distinguishing characters between the two taxa, based on a poorly preserved metacarpal I from the holotype of Australovenator. Agnolin et al. (2010) reclassified Rapator, instead finding it a megaraptoran, potentially a sister taxon to Australovenator. They mentioned that Megaraptor, the only other taxon also preserving metacarpal I, was less similar to Rapator than Australovenator. However, there were no clear differences between the two latter taxa. The metacarpals of both taxa were redescribed in White et al. (2014), who determined that they were not synonymous, adding multiple features to the potential characters identified by Hocknull et al. and Angolan et al.