Fossils Reveal What Could Be Europe¡¯s Biggest Meat-Eating Dinosaur
Researchers have found parts of the fossilised bones of the dinosaur were found on the surface near Compton Bay on the southwestern coast of the Isle of Wight.
Scientists have discovered fossils for what they think could belong to the largest meat-eating dinosaur ever to be found in Europe.
Anthony Hutchings/Handout via Reuters
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Researchers have found parts of the fossilised bones of the dinosaur were found on the surface near Compton Bay on the southwestern coast of the Isle of Wight.
They seem to be around 125 million years old, from the Cretaceous Period. The fossils include bones of the back, tail and hips. However, sadly, it doesn¡¯t really include the skull or teeth.
Based on the partial remains, the dinosaur is established to be over 10 metres in length or even longer than that. According to Chris Barker, lead writer of the study the dinosaur belonged to the group dubbed spinosaurs. The group consisted of Spinosaurus that lived around 95 million years ago. With around 15 metres in length, it is regarded as the longest known dinosaur predator.
Spinosaurus had long heads with lots of teeth, strong arms, and large claws too. They normally feasted on water creatures as well as other dinosaur species.
Meat-eating dinosaurs in general come from a group dubbed theropods and several theropods who were quite large in size were scattered across the world, all walking on two legs and possessing huge skulls with extremely strong teeth.
Reuters
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Africa had Spinosaurus, North America had Tyrannosaurus (being almost 13 metres long), South America had Giganotosaurus and Asia had the Tarbosaurus. Europe¡¯s largest known identified theropod was Torvosaurus at around 10 metres.
According to Neil Gostling, who managed the publication of the study, the newly discovered dinosaur species could be as long as T.rex and hopes to find more fossils to better understand what it was like.
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