Pandoravenator fossil map
Where fossils of Pandoravenator have been found, shown on the Earth as it looked about 160 million years ago and on today’s map.
Dots are fossil collections recorded in the Paleobiology Database. The “then” view moves today’s fossil sites back to their positions 160 million years ago (the time slice nearest the median age of the fossils) using the Merdith et al. (2021) plate model; positions are approximate. Open on the timeline map →
About Pandoravenator
Pandoravenator (meaning "Pandora hunter", after the type locality, "Caja de Pandora", i.e. Pandora's box) is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic (Oxfordian to Tithonian) of central Patagonia (Chubut Province). Fossils in the form of a fragmentally preserved postcranial skeleton of this dinosaur were discovered and scientifically described in 2017 by paleontologists Oliver Rauhut and Diego Pol as the type species P. fernandezorum.
This dinosaur represents the first theropod discovered in the 160–150 million year old sediments of the Cañadón Calcáreo Formation, a Late Jurassic assemblage in Argentina, which has also produced remains from sauropods, neosauropods, ancient crocodiles and ancient fishes. The significance of Pandoravenator is associated with the evolution of a particular set of features that are characteristic of the averostran or tetanuran tarsus (ankle and foot). The interpretation put forward by Rauhut and Pol suggests that the unique developmental pattern seen in the astragalus of living birds arose at least at the base of Averostra, when the ceratosaur and tetanuran lineages diverged from one another, in the late Early Jurassic.
Text in “About” is quoted from the Wikipedia article Pandoravenator (revision 1343484297), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; introduction excerpted verbatim, formatting removed. Ages, family, authority and fossil records: Paleobiology Database, accessed 23 October 2026. Ages are those of the rock layers the fossils were found in. Wikidata: Q43178299.
