By the end of the Cretaceous, the last theropods still ranged from giant bone-crushing hunters to smaller, lighter, faster forms, with birds overhead carrying the branch into the future.

Their lifestyles reflected that variety. Some were giant ambush or pursuit predators with massive skulls and powerful bites. Others were built for speed, agility, or smaller prey. Some likely chased, some scavenged, some snapped up little animals, and some had begun leaning fully into the avian way of life. Even near the end, theropods were still experimenting within their winning blueprint: strong hind legs, balancing tails, grasping forelimbs or winged descendants, sharp senses, and body plans tuned for active lives. The latest European record in particular points to several small-bodied theropod niches existing side by side rather than one generic “last raptor” type.

Their broader journey is one of the great stories in evolution. Theropods began in the Late Triassic and, including birds, have lasted roughly 170 million years. Over that immense stretch of time, they produced towering predators, strange beaked forms, feathered runners, and finally the only dinosaurs still alive today: birds.

Long before the end, by about 180 million years ago, Asia and North America were no longer part of one seamless northern landmass, sending their animals into separate evolutionary experiments. In evolution, this kind of geographic split is called vicariance. Well over 100 million years later, the tyrannosaurid body plan proved so successful that you can still clearly see the family resemblance on both continents. By the end, 66 million years ago, Tyrannosaurus rex in North America and Tarbosaurus bataar in Asia looked strikingly similar, and both stood among the top predators on their continents.