After being kept in the basement of a museum in Thailand for over 30 years, a group of palaeontologists from the University of Bonn in Germany and from the Sirindhorn museum in Thailand have brought to light two 125 million year old megaraptora dinosaurs. Phuiangvenator Yaemniomi and Vayuraptor Nongbualamphuensis been discarded in museum vaults until Adun Samanthi and Martin Sander identified them to be something worth looking at.
P.Yaemniomi would have been around 6 metres long (20 feet) with powerful arms and a long snout. V.Nongbualamphunesis would probably had a very similar build despite being about 1.5 metres shorter. Due to the fact that there are very few bones attributed to V.Nongbualamphuensis, the exact position of the species in the megaraptor phylogenetic tree is unknown.
Megaraptors are predominantly found in South America and Australia, so it is likely, considering that P.Yaemniomi shows characteristics of early megaraptors, that the group evolved in what is now south east Asia.
The full findings were published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
Dinosauria 