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Dino Codex
MaipAI image
AI imageCreated with GPT Image 2 by OpenAI on Oct 31, 2026

Note: This dinosaur is known from only part of a skeleton. The image fills in the missing parts from close relatives, so the real animal may have looked quite different.

Match with prompt

100% (9/9 items)

See the checklist, prompt and sources
  • ✓Bipedal, back horizontal, tail held straight out off the ground
  • ✓Mouth closed, lips covering the teeth so none are visible
  • ✓Palms facing each other, not turned down or danglingมือพับแนบอก กรงเล็บงอเข้า
  • ✓Three weight-bearing toes on each foot
  • ✓Long strong arms with huge curved claws on the thumb and first finger
  • ✓Large predator about 9–10 m long, long narrow skull, long legs
  • ✓Whole animal visible in side view
  • ✓Scene matches the period and the fossil site
  • ✓No text, people or modern objects

Checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (checked item by item from the image) on Oct 31, 2026. The score is the share of checklist items the image gets right; it is not an expert scientific review.

Prompt used to create the image

Scientifically accurate paleoart of Maip, a carnivore Megaraptoridae dinosaur from the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous (about 70 million years ago). Bipedal with the back held roughly horizontal and the tail held straight out behind for balance, never dragging on the ground. NOT standing upright like a kangaroo. Mouth closed with all teeth fully hidden behind scaly lips, like a monitor lizard. NO visible teeth. Hands held tucked in near the chest with the palms facing inward toward each other, like clapping, claws curving inward and forward. NOT hanging down, NOT palms-down, NOT claws pointing at the ground. Long, strong arms with an enormous curved claw on the thumb and a large claw on the first finger. Reference: Maip is a genus of large megaraptorid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Chorrillo Formation of Santa Cruz, Argentina. The genus contains a single species, M. macrothorax, known from an incomplete, disarticulated skeleton. Maip may represent the largest megaraptorid known from South America, and possibly the world. Anatomy: three main weight-bearing toes on each foot; a large predator about 9–10 meters long with a long, narrow skull and long legs. Full body in side view, whole animal visible, standing in a cool Late Cretaceous floodplain in southern Patagonia, Argentina, like the Chorrillo Formation, with conifers, ferns and early flowering plants, no grass. Natural history museum illustration style, realistic textures and natural daylight, muted natural colors. No text, no labels, no humans, no modern objects.

Facts in the prompt come from Wikipedia (en) and Paleobiology Database

Maip

Name meaning: Named after an evil spirit in the mythology of the Tehuelche people of southern Argentina, described as "the shadow of death" that came with the cold wind.

Carnivore

📏 About 9–10 m long.

Find it in a game

  • In Drifting Continents, guess where its fossils were found on the ancient Earth · opens the game at globe.dinocodex.com

    Pin Maip on the globe

Maip was a megaraptoran, a predator with huge hand claws, from Late Cretaceous Argentina. It was named in 2022 and is one of the largest megaraptorans known.

Fun facts

  • Megaraptorans had very long thumb and index-finger claws, probably their main weapons for catching prey.
  • Maip has a megaraptoran relative in Thailand: Phuwiangvenator from Khon Kaen.

Who lived alongside it

Dinosaurs found in the same rock formation as Maip (Chorrillo), so they lived in the same region at roughly the same time.

Formation data from the Paleobiology Database, counting only each genus's main formations. One formation can span hundreds of thousands to millions of years, so this doesn't mean any two of them ever met.

Scientific details

Classification
Theropod (two-legged predators)
Family
Megaraptoridae
When it lived
66–72.2 million years ago
Geologic stages
Maastrichtian
Named by
Aranciaga Rolando et al., 2022
Fossil occurrences
1 sites

Countries with fossils

  • Argentina

Data from Paleobiology Database and Wikidata