Powellvenator

Powellvenator podocitus was described in 2017 by Martín D. Ezcurra based on previously undescribed partial hindlimb remains from the Los Colorados Formation. Some of the referred material had earlier been interpreted by J. F. Bonaparte as belonging to an indeterminate coelurosaur, but was later reinterpreted by Ezcurra as belonging to the new taxon.

The generic name, Powellvenator, honours the Argentine paleontologist Jaime Powell, combined with the Latin venator ("hunter"). The specific name, podocitus, was established with the type species in the original description.

Powellvenator is known from fragmentary material, especially partial hindlimb bones, rather than from a complete skeleton. Because of this, many details of its full appearance, body proportions, and external covering remain uncertain.

Ezcurra diagnosed Powellvenator podocitus using a distinctive combination of ankle and foot characters, including an astragalus with a distinctly sigmoid posterodorsal margin, a rounded dorsal expansion on the anteromedial portion of the astragalar body in anterior view, a calcaneum with a laterally projected flange, and a strongly reduced shaft of metatarsal II.

In its original description, Powellvenator was recovered within Coelophysoidea and as the sister taxon to Coelophysidae. Its description helped expand the South American record of early neotheropod dinosaurs, which had previously been far poorer than the record from North America and Europe.

Powellvenator lived during the Norian stage of the Late Triassic. The fossils come from the Los Colorados Formation, a unit known for preserving a diverse Late Triassic terrestrial fauna from Argentina.