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About Martharaptor:
Only the third dinosaur in history ever to incorporate a female first name--the first was Leaellynasaura, named after the daughter of paleontologists Patricia Vickers-Rich, and the second was Sarahsaurus, named after philanthropist Sarah Butler--Martharaptor is also the most mysterious. All we know for sure about this dinosaur, named after the Utah Geological Survey's Martha Hayden, is that it was a theropod; the scattered fossils are too incomplete to allow a more conclusive identification.
However, there are some tantalizing clues. Some of the preserved bones of Martharaptor bear a marked resemblance to another theropod of early Cretaceous Utah, Falcarius. This dinosaur has been conclusively identified as a therizinosaur--a weird offshoot of the theropod family featuring long front claws, shaggy feathers, and a prominent pot belly. Most strikingly, there's some evidence that Falcarius pursued an exclusively herbivorous diet, which would make it the first identified theropod not to be a dedicated carnivore (or at least an omnivore). If Marthraptor's kinship to Falcarius goes more than feather-deep, paleontologists may just have discovered the world's second plant-eating theropod!
