Maleriraptor kuttyi resided in what is now India throughout the Norian age of the Triassic duration, some 220 million years earlier.

The ancient reptile belongs to Herrerasauria, a group of little-to medium-sized predators that appeared in the fossil record about 228 million years back and ended up being extinct by the end of the Triassic.

“Herrerasaurs represent the earliest radiation of predatory dinosaurs,” stated 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 coworkers.

“Until just recently, their record was unambiguously limited to 4 small types of the middle Carnian-lowermost Norian beds of the Ischigualasto Formation of northwestern Argentina and the lower part of the Candelária series of southern Brazil (233-229 million years ago).”

“These types are bipedal types varying from 1.2 to 6 m (3.9-19.7 feet) in overall length.”

“In specific, Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis is the most plentiful dinosaur in the lower third of the stratigraphic series of the Ischigualasto Formation at the Hoyada de Ischigualasto area.”

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

The fossilized product of Maleriraptor kuttyi was gathered more than 4 years earlier from the Upper Maleri Formation in Pranhita-Godavari Valley, around 1 km south of the Annaram town, south-central India.

“The Upper Maleri Formation that yielded the remains of Maleriraptor kutty is especially pertinent to clarify the early advancement of dinosaurs due to the fact that it maintains a dinosaur assemblage a little more youthful than the preliminary Carnian radiation of the group,” the paleontologists stated.

According to the group, Maleriraptor kuttyi reveals the very first proof that herrerasaurs made it through likewise in Gondwana the tetrapod turnover throughout the early Norian age (227-220 million years ago) that led to the worldwide termination of a group of herbivorous archosauromorph reptiles called rhynchosaurs.

“The discovery of Maleriraptor kuttyi programs that herrerasaurs made it through in Gondwana a minimum of throughout the early Norian after the occasion that disappeared the rhynchosaurs,” the authors stated.

“The existence of herrerasaurs in the early Norian of India and not in South America might be climatically associated since international palaeoclimatic restorations show that India had mean yearly temperature levels and rainfalls more comparable to those of southern North America in the Norian.”

“Thus, the more comparable palaeoclimate in between India and southern North America can discuss the existence of typical faunistic elements that are missing in south-central South America (or are incredibly uncommon), such as phytosaurs, herrerasaurs, protopyknosians and malerisaurine allokotosaurs.”

“The deposition of the Upper Maleri Formation most likely happened soon after the termination of rhynchosaurs, which are perfectly taped in the Lower Maleri Formation.”

“Faunistic similarities in between the Upper Maleri Formation and the upper area of the Santa Maria Supersequence of Brazil, such as the existence of unaysaurids, recommend a comparable age that it is dated in 225 million years in the Brazilian system.”

“Thus, Maleriraptor kuttyi partly fills the early Norian space in the herrerasaur record.”

The group’s paper was released in the journal Royal Society Open Science

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Martín D. Ezcurra et al2025. A brand-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