Saltriovenator

***Saltriovenator*** (meaning "Saltrio hunter") is a genus of ceratosaurian dinosaur that lived during the Sinemurian stage of the Early Jurassic in what is now Italy. The type and only species is ***Saltriovenator zanellai***; in the past, the species had been known under the informal name "saltriosaur". Although a full skeleton has not yet been discovered, *Saltriovenator* is thought to have been a large, bipedal carnivore similar to *Ceratosaurus*.

On 4 August 1996, the first remains of *Saltriovenator* were discovered by amateur paleontologist Angelo Zanella, searching for ammonites in the *Salnova* marble quarry in Saltrio, northern Italy. Zanella had already been working for the *Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano* and this institution after being informed sent out a team to investigate the find. Cristiano Dal Sasso and the volunteers of the Paleontological Group of Besano, under the direction of Giorgio Teruzzi managed to salvage a number of chalk blocks visibly containing bones. The skeleton had shortly before its discovery been blown to pieces by explosives used in the quarry to break the marble layers. Blocks that had been secured were for 1800 hours inserted into a bath of formic acid to free the bones. Initially, 119 bone fragments were reported to have been collected in total; this was later increased to 132. However, most cannot be exactly identified.

In 2000, the museum opened a special exhibition of the bones. On this occasion, Dal Sasso provisionally gave the dinosaur, now thought to be a species new to science, the Italian name *Saltriosauro*. Although this has been occasionally Latinised to "Saltriosaurus", even in the scientific literature, in both the Italian and Latin form it remained an invalid *nomen nudum*.

In December 2018, Dal Sasso, Simone Maganuco and Andrea Cau named and described the specimen as the type species *Saltriovenator zanellai*. The generic name combines a reference to Saltrio with Latin, *venator*, "hunter", a common suffix in the names of theropods. The authors pointed out that a *venator* is also a type of Roman gladiator. The specific name honours Zanella. Because the article was published in an electronic publication, Life Science Identifiers were necessary to make the name valid. These are 8C9F3B56-F622-4C39-8E8B-C2E890811E74 for the genus and BDD366A7-6A9D-4A32-9841-F7273D8CA00B for the species. *Saltriovenator* is the third dinosaur named from Italy, the first from the Alps and the second theropod from Italy, after *Scipionyx*.

The holotype, **MSNM V3664**, was found in a layer of the Saltrio Formation dating from the earliest early Sinemurian, 199 million years old. It consists of a fragmentary skeleton with a lower jaw. About 10% of the skeleton has been discovered, including a tooth, a right splenial, a right prearticular, a neck rib, fragments of the dorsal ribs and scapulae, a well preserved but incomplete furcula, humeri, metacarpal II, phalanx II-1, phalanx III-1, phalanx III-2, manual ungual III, a distal tarsal III, a distal tarsal IV and the proximal second to fifth metatarsals. The holotype individual likely died on the shores of an ancient beach before being washed out to sea. After death, the skeletal remains suffered from prolonged transport, during which many bones were lost and the remaining ones highly fragmented.

Although *Saltriovenator* was not aquatic, the environment in which the carcass was deposited was likely pelagic, judging by the associated ammonites. The locality is also rich in crinoids, gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods and bryozoans. Deposition occurred on a slope between a shallow carbonate platform and a deeper basin. Various scratches, grooves, and striations indicate that the carcass was subject to scavenging by marine invertebrates. The specimen represents a subadult individual, nearing its maximum size, of which the age has been estimated at twenty-four years.