Dracoraptor

Dracoraptor (meaning "dragon thief") is a genus of coelophysoid dinosaur that lived during the Hettangian stage of the Early Jurassic Period of what is now Wales dated at about 201 million years ago. The fossil was first discovered in 2014 by Rob and Nick Hanigan and Sam Davies at the Blue Lias Formation on the South Wales coast. The genus name Dracoraptor is from Draco, referring to the Welsh dragon, and raptor, meaning robber, a commonly employed suffix for theropod dinosaurs, with the type species being Dracoraptor hanigani. It is one of the oldest known Jurassic dinosaurs and is the first dinosaur skeleton from the Jurassic of Wales.

==Discovery and naming== left|thumb|235x235px|A lifesize model of a Dracoraptor at the National Museum Cardiff The first Dracoraptor fossils were discovered in 2014 near the Welsh town of Penarth. In March 2014, brothers and amateur palaeontologists Nick and Rob Hanigan, while searching for ichthyosaur remains at Lavernock Point, a large cape south of Cardiff, found stone plates containing dinosaur fossils which had fallen off the high cliff face. Judith Adams and Philip Manning of the University of Manchester took X-ray pictures and CAT-scans of the fossils. The remains were donated to Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, and prepared by Craig Chivers and Gary Blackwell. In 2015, student Sam Davies found additional rock plates at the dig site which contained foot bones assigned to Dracoraptor. thumb|Reconstructed skeleton of Dracoraptor hanigani at the Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum The type species, Dracoraptor hanigani, was named and described in 2016 by British palaeontologists David Martill, Steven Vidovic, Cindy Howells, and John Nudds. The generic name combines the Latin draco, "dragon", a reference to the Welsh Dragon, with raptor, "robber". The specific name honours Nick and Rob Hanigan as discoverers.