Kank australis: Patagonia’s Last “Raptor” – New Southern Predator Lived Right Before the Dinosaur Apocalypse

In a discovery that captures the final moments of the Age of Dinosaurs, paleontologists have named Kank australis — a sleek, raptor-like theropod from southern Patagonia that prowled the landscape just 300,000 years before the Chicxulub impact.

Described in Cretaceous Research (June 2026) by a CONICET team led by Dr. Matías Motta of the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, the partial skeleton was recovered from the uppermost levels of the La Colonia Formation in Chubut Province, Argentina. At roughly 2.8 metres long and 40–50 kg, this unenlagiine dromaeosaurid possessed the classic sickle claw, elongated limbs for speed, and a lightweight skull with recurved teeth — the southern counterpart to North America’s Velociraptor.

What makes Kank australis (“southern raptor” in the Tehuelche language) extraordinary is its timing: it lived in the final Maastrichtian, alongside тιтanosaurs, hadrosaurs, and the last surviving abelisaurids. Tooth marks on bones and isotopic data suggest it hunted small ornithopods and scavenged carcᴀsses in a cooling, seasonal environment already showing signs of ecological stress before the asteroid struck.

Motta noted the specimen is “one of the last predatory dinosaurs on Earth — a final southern raptor that proves Gondwanan theropods remained diverse and dangerous right up to the end.” The find demonstrates that dromaeosaurids persisted in South America longer than previously thought and occupied a mid-sized predatory niche distinct from larger abelisaurids.

The holotype is now on display at MEF in Trelew with a dynamic life reconstruction. Kank australis stands as a poignant reminder that even the most agile hunters could not escape the greatest mᴀss extinction in 66 million years.