Scientists have found conclusive proof that raptors (a form of bird-like, meat-eating dinosaur) once roamed the Southern Hemisphere. Researchers from the Ohio State University and Argentine Museum of Natural History have discovered 90 million old fossils of Neuquenraptor Argentinus in Patagonia (at the southern tip of South America). The findings were published in the current issue of the journal Nature.

Raptor Foot Fossil (Courtesy: Argentine Museum of Natural History) The bones were first discovered in 1996. However, it took this much time to clean up, match, and map all the bones against a database of other fossils, which finally allowed the scientists to identify the bones to that of a raptor. The raptor lived during the late Cretaceous period (146-65 million years ago: the last of the three periods in the Mesozoic era, which also includes the Jurassic and the Triassic periods). This was roughly during the famed Velociraptor immortalized in the movie Jurassic Park.
During this era, the earth only had two giant supercontinents: Gondwana (composed of South America, Africa, Antarctica, India, and Australia, and at one time Florida and part of southwest Europe), and Laurasia (composed of North America, Europe, and Asia), the two completely separated by an ancient ocean. Velociraptors and its cousins roamed the Laurasia, whereas the Argentine raptor lived in Gondwana. This is what makes this find so unique: it suggests that the raptors were split up before Gondwana and Laurasia separated, some 150 million years ago, during the late Jurassic period.
Until now, all the raptor fossils were discovered in the Laurasian landmass. This is the first time some fossil has been located in the Gondwanan mass, and this will allow scientists to compare the fossils from the two regions and form a more accurate picture of the fearsome lizards that once roamed the earth.