Gigantoraptor is the largest known member of the oviraptorosaur dinosaur group. Oviraptorosaur dinosaurs had distinctive parrot-like skulls with beaks.

Some oviraptorosaurs had a bony crest on their head. But the full skull of Gigantoraptor is unknown. Scientists have only found its lower jaw.

While many of its smaller relatives definitely had feathers, we don't know if Gigantoraptor did.

Only one specimen of Gigantoraptor has ever been found, and scientists think it was around 12 years old when it died. They think young Gigantoraptor may have grown up more quickly and reached full size sooner than many other two-legged dinosaurs.

How big was Gigantoraptor?

At eight metres long, Gigantoraptor was much larger than any of its known relatives.

It was so big that when the first fossil was found - a huge leg bone - people thought it belonged to a sauropod - a long-necked dinosaur such as Diplodocus.

The discovery happened when Chinese dinosaur expert Xu Xing was taking part in a documentary about how he had discovered a sauropod dinosaur in the same place. The film crew asked to record him digging up another bone for their video.

But as he unearthed the fossil, Xu realised that it wasn't a sauropod at all - it was a new giant theropod! 

What did Gigantoraptor eat?

Experts believe smaller oviraptorosaurs lived on a mixed diet of fruit, shellfish, eggs and insects. But the jaws of Gigantoraptor looked a little different.

Gigantoraptor might have dined on both vegetation and meat to sustain its larger size.

The broad shape of its toothless beak could mean that it wasn't too fussy about exactly what it ate.

Which other dinosaurs lived with Gigantoraptor?

We know that Gigantoraptor lived alongside several other Late Cretaceous dinosaurs in what's now Inner Mongolia.

These include an early relative of Tyrannosaurus called Alectrosaurus, the titanosaur Sonidosaurus and some hadrosaurs, Bactrosaurus and Gilmoreosaurus.

Was Gigantoraptor a raptor?

In everyday speech, 'raptor' is often used as shorthand for a member of the dromaeosaur group - two-legged hunters with distinctive sickle-clawed toes.

This is because many dromaeosaurs have 'raptor' in their names, such as Velociraptor, Bambiraptor and Utahraptor.

However, not all raptor-named dinosaurs are dromaeosaurs. Gigantoraptor and its relatives - the oviraptorosaurs - are a closely related but separate group.