Siats is a type of dinosaur that lived a long time ago, around 94.5 to 99 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. It was discovered in Utah, in an area called the Cedar Mountain Formation. The dinosaur is known from a single species called Siats meekerorum.
The name “Siats” comes from a scary monster in Ute mythology that was said to eat people. The name honors geologist John Caldwell Meeker and his family for supporting dinosaur research.
The remains of Siats were found in a fossil site, and the bones were found sticking out of a hillside in 2008. Excavations took place from 2008 to 2010, and the skeleton includes several bones from its back, tail, legs, and feet.
Siats is significant because it is one of the largest known theropod dinosaurs from that time in North America. Even though the specimen found was not fully grown, it weighed around 3.9 metric tons, which is similar to some other big dinosaurs of its era.
Scientists initially thought Siats belonged to a family called megaraptorans, which includes other large dinosaurs. Over the years, different studies have suggested other classifications for Siats, sometimes placing it within the neovenatorids or even as related to tyrannosaurids.
Despite the different opinions on how to classify Siats, there is general agreement that it was a large and important dinosaur that walked the Earth long before humans existed. Its discovery helps us understand the variety of dinosaur life in ancient North America.