''Phuwiangvenator'' ("hunter of Phu Wiang") is a genus of 6 meter long

megaraptoran Megaraptora is a clade of carnivorous tetanuran theropod dinosaurs with controversial relations to other theropods. Its derived members, the Megaraptoridae are noted for their elongated hand claws and proportionally large arms, which are usually ...

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is 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 c ...

that lived during the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pro ...

period in what is now

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. It contains a single species, ''P. yaemniyomi'', recovered from the Sao Khua Formation. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

was first found in 1993, before being named in 2019. The holotype specimen consists of a partial skeleton consisting of a dorsal vertebra, three fused sacral vertebrae, right metacarpal II, right manual phalanges and unguals, right and left tibiae, left astragalocalcaneum, left metatarsal I, right metatarsals II–IV, right pedal phalanges and unguals, with a referred specimen including an atlantal intercentrum and right astragalocalcaneum which were found together. In the phylogenetic analyses it was found to be the basalmost megaraptoran. Additional materials belonging to the holotype were described in 2021.

References

Megaraptorans Barremian life Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia Cretaceous Thailand Fossils of Thailand Fossil taxa described in 2019 {{theropod-stub