Utahraptor Dinosaur Claw Fossil

Description

Utahraptor Dinosaur Claw Fossil Replica measures 7 inches. The Utahraptor Dinosaur Claw Fossil is Museum quality polyurethane cast made in USA. Our precise claw can be used as a teaching tool, museum claw exhibit, home décor claw, or office décor claw.

The fierce relentless Utahraptor or Utahraptor ostrommaysi of the late Jurassic eastern Utah. Sharp fingers slashed and tore the thick hide of its larger prey.

Utahraptor meaning Utah’s predator is a genus of theropod dinosaurs. It contains a single species, Utahraptor ostrommaysorum, which is the largest known member of the family Dromaeosauridae.

Utahraptor or Utahraptor ostrommaysi fossil specimens date to the upper Barremian stage of the early Cretaceous period in rock strata dated to 2.5 million years ago. The first specimens of Utahraptor were found in 1975 by Jim Jensen in the Dalton Wells Quarry in east-central Utah, near the town of Moab.

After a find of a large foot-claw by Carl Limoni in October 1991, James Kirkland, Robert Gaston, and Donald Burge uncovered further remains of Utahraptor in the Gaston Quarry in Grand County, Utah. Radiometric dating has shown that these parts of the Cedar Mountain Formation were deposited about 124 million years ago.

Utahraptor or Utahraptor ostrommaysi diet consisted of large herbivorous dinosaurs. In the formations where it was found (the Yellow Cat and Poison Strip members of the Cedar Mountain Formation), Utahraptor lived alongside such dinosaurs as Gastonia, Hippodraco, Cedrorestes, Iguanacolossus, Martharaptor, and Falcarius. Sauropods such as Venenosaurus and Cedarosaurus were also found here, as were other predators such as Nedcolbertia and Geminiraptor.

Any one of these was a potential prey victim, though the smaller animals such as Necolbertia would have been little in the way of a meal for such a predator as Utahraptor.

Utahraptor or Utahraptor ostrommaysi likely preyed upon animals such as the infirm, weak and inexperienced. Scavenging was also probably a preferable opportunity when there was access to a carcass. Utahraptor probably relied on its jaws to kill prey more than other subfamilies of dromaeosaurs did.

As a result and based on the analysis of related species like Dromaeosaurus, which included bone in its diet, Utahraptor probably had an extremely powerful bite.

This group of carnivorous dinosaurs had a large retractable sickle claw on its foot, specialized for cutting. With a name meaning “Utah’s predator,” Utahraptor was a ferocious hunter that used its sickle-shaped claws to attack and rip apart its prey. The claw itself was 9.5 inches.

Utahraptor Dinosaur Facts:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade: Theropoda
Family: †Dromaeosauridae
Subfamily: †Dromaeosaurinae
Genus: †Utahraptor
Type species: †Utahraptor ostrommaysi
Conservation Status: Extinct

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