The newly-identified species fills a temporal gap between South American herrerasaurid dinosaurs and their younger relatives from North America.

Maleriraptor kuttyi lived in what is now India during the Norian age of the Triassic period, some 220 million years ago.

The ancient reptile is a member of Herrerasauria, a group of small- to medium-sized carnivores that appeared in the fossil record about 228 million years ago and became extinct by the end of the Triassic.

“Herrerasaurs represent the oldest radiation of predatory dinosaurs,” said Dr. Martín Ezcurra, a paleontologist with the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia,’ the University of Birmingham and the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, and his colleagues.

“Until recently, their record was unambiguously restricted to four nominal species of the middle Carnian-lowermost Norian beds of the Ischigualasto Formation of northwestern Argentina and the lower portion of the Candelária sequence of southern Brazil (233-229 million years ago).”

“These species are bipedal forms ranging from 1.2 to 6 m (3.9-19.7 feet) in total length.”

“In particular, Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis is the most abundant dinosaur in the lower third of the stratigraphic sequence of the Ischigualasto Formation at the Hoyada de Ischigualasto locality.”

“The possible presence of herrerasaurs outside of South America was first suggested in the mid-1990s with the description of Chindesaurus bryansmalli from middle-upper Norian levels of the Chinle Formation of North America.”

The fossilized material of Maleriraptor kuttyi was collected more than four decades ago from the Upper Maleri Formation in Pranhita-Godavari Valley, around 1 km south of the Annaram village, south-central India.

“The Upper Maleri Formation that yielded the remains of Maleriraptor kutty is particularly relevant to shed light on the early evolution of dinosaurs because it preserves a dinosaur assemblage slightly younger than the initial Carnian radiation of the group,” the paleontologists said.

According to the team, Maleriraptor kuttyi shows the first evidence that herrerasaurs survived also in Gondwana the tetrapod turnover during the early Norian age (227-220 million years ago) that resulted in the global extinction of a group of herbivorous archosauromorph reptiles called rhynchosaurs.

“The discovery of Maleriraptor kuttyi shows that herrerasaurs survived in Gondwana at least during the early Norian after the event that vanished the rhynchosaurs,” the authors said.

“The presence of herrerasaurs in the early Norian of India and not in South America could be climatically related because global palaeoclimatic reconstructions indicate that India had mean annual temperatures and precipitations more similar to those of southern North America in the Norian.”

“Thus, the more similar palaeoclimate between India and southern North America can explain the presence of common faunistic components that are absent in south-central South America (or are extremely rare), such as phytosaurs, herrerasaurs, protopyknosians and malerisaurine allokotosaurs.”

“The deposition of the Upper Maleri Formation probably occurred shortly after the extinction of rhynchosaurs, which are abundantly recorded in the Lower Maleri Formation.”

“Faunistic resemblances between the Upper Maleri Formation and the upper section of the Santa Maria Supersequence of Brazil, such as the presence of unaysaurids, suggest a similar age that it is dated in 225 million years in the Brazilian unit.”

“Thus, Maleriraptor kuttyi partially fills the early Norian gap in the herrerasaur record.”

The team’s paper was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

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Martín D. Ezcurra et al. 2025. A new herrerasaurian dinosaur from the Upper Triassic Upper Maleri Formation of south-central India. R. Soc. Open Sci 12 (5): 250081; doi: 10.1098/rsos.250081