Imagine a fearsome, fast and feathered prehistoric predator, a giant bulked-up ostrich-like creature that captures its prey with massive claws.
It's not a "Jurassic Park" fictional character but a dinosaur discovery, unearthed in West River, that lives up to many of the traits of Steven Spielberg's vision of long-ago raptors.
A partial skeleton of a heretofore unknown species of dinosaur, dubbed a "giant raptor," was found by a team of scientists in part of the Hell Creek Formation in southeast Harding County south of the Slim Buttes formation.
The specimen, named Dakotaraptor, is one of the largest raptors found in the world at more than 16 feet long.
Despite being pumped up in the movies, the Velociraptor is really only about the size of a turkey, but the Dakotaraptor would have towered over it, standing more than 8 feet tall and having knife-like claws almost 10 inches long.
The forearms, several vertebra, a claw and some teeth from the Dakotaraptor were found, but no skull has been recovered from the Harding County dig site. READ MORE-http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/remains-of-a-giant-raptor-new-species-of-dinosaur-found/article_2cb23057-7d44-531d-aebb-8c00c72b9092.html
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