Irritator was a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in Brazil in the early Cretaceous about 110 million years ago. It was the first non-avian in South America and the first identifiable dinosaur from Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The irritator was initially thought to be a Maniraptoran dinosaur, a relative of the feathery Deinonychosaurs, Oviraptorosaurs and their fur, but that same year it was recognized that the irritator was actually a spinosaur, one of the predatory dinosaurs with a crocodilian snout and often a sailback, according to paleontologist Andrew Kellner. It had a slender jaw with nostrils well back from the front of the snout. It had a large ridge on the squared bone at the top of the skull. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The irritator was smaller than other known spinosaurs. It had straight conical or only slightly recurved teeth, with defined but not serrated edges, and fed on fish, like pterosaurs. It was characterized by arched frontal bones, concave at the top and narrow at the front, which caused the eyes to be located higher on the head than in other theropods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Irritator had rapid head development and a downward-slanting snout posture, allowing unobstructed forward stereoscopic vision, which is significant for separation discernment and, subsequently, for accurate snout grasping movements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The irritator reached 6 to 8 meters in length and weighed about 1 ton, making it one of the smallest known spinosaurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Martill and his team wrote that the Irritator came \"from irritation,\" i.e., what the authors felt when they discovered that the snout had been artificially lengthened.\u00a0
Irritator was a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous Brazil about 110 million years ago. The nearly complete skull found in the Romualdo Formation of the Araripe Basin.
Irritators fed on fish like today's crocodiles.