Joan Wiffen's Theropod

New Zealand Theropod Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Theropoda
Superfamily:	Probably Allosauroidea

Joan Wiffen's Theropod is a currently unnamed dinosaur that was found by Joan Wiffen in Cretaceous rocks of New Zealand. It is known from one single tail vertebra, and is probably a type of Allosaur, because this is what the tail vertebra seems to resemble most. Unless a better collection of fossils is discovered, this dinosaur shall remain unnamed because we do not know whether it is a new species, or an already discovered that came to New Zealand.

Description

Joan Wiffen's Theropod was approximately six meters in length (twenty feet) long, and like all Theropods (beside Therizinosaurus) it would have been bipedal and carnivorous. It's main food source would come from the small hypsilophodont that lived at the same place as it, and the titanosaur and ankylosaurs. Its most probable predator would have been the Moanasaurus, one of the largest mosasaurs ever discovered.

Discovery and species

Joan Wiffen's Theropod is known from a single tail vertebra found by Joan Wiffen in the Mangahouanga Stream. Because of the lack of fossils, it is hard to determine what species of dinosaur is, although Wiffen determined that it probably came from a Megalosaur, although in reality the tail bone is more like that of an allosaur, like the Australian dinosaur Australovenator. It shall not be given an official binomial name until more about its classification is known.

Classification

The Theropod of Joan Wiffen owes its name to the group Theropoda, a group of bipedal dinosaurs that were all carnivorous. This group includes Allosaurus, Megalosaurus and most famously, Tyrannosaurus rex, plus many more.

Paleoecology

In the time of Joan Wiffen's Theropod, New Zealand was connected to Australia and much closer to the South Pole. It was mostly jungle, and dinosaur life was more common then ever. The New Zealand Theropod existed with Joan Wiffen's Sauropod and an unidentified type of pterosaur. Apart from this, not much is known.

Diet

Like most Theropods, the New Zealand variation would have been carnivorous, and would have most likely hunted sauropods and ornithopods.

In Popular Culture

Joan Wiffen's Theropod has been mentioned in the documentary The Lost Dinosaurs of New Zealand]], where it was said that it was "Possibly a megalosaur", although it has now been shown that this is probably not the case, as the one bone that was found of this creature looks more like the tail vertebra of an allosaur than a megalosaur. The description of Joan Wiffen's Theropod is similar to the depiction of the polar allosaurs or dwarf allosaurs (Australovenator) in the show Walking with Dinosaurs, and it is possible that Joan Wiffen's Theropod is actually a different species of Australovenator, which, as its name suggests, lived in Australia at approximately the same time of Joan Wiffen's Theropod.

Sources

• [1] Dinosaurs rock!

See Also

• Dinosaurs of New Zealand