Scientists discover terrifying predatory dinosaur in landmark find

A massive species of dinosaur has been identified by scientists, and it's thought that it lived around 95 million years ago in modern-day Africa.

At a whopping 10-metres long, it is thought to be one of the largest known land-based carnivores ever to have roamed our planet and its relatives include the North African and South American Carcharodontosaurus, as well as predatory dinosaurs from Asia.

The skeleton was excavated in the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt and then stored together with other Egyptian dinosaur fossils in the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Munich.

The discovery of the Tameryraptor markgrafi is thanks to archive photographs of the dinosaur’s skeleton from before 1944, due to the fossil being destroyed during the Second World War.

Back then, the fossil was allocated to the genus Carcharodontosaurus, meaning shark-toothed lizard.

As a result of the Second World War, the bombing caused a considerable amount of destruction of the fossil collection from Egypt, that was displayed in Munich.

Tameryraptor markgrafi University Archives Tübingen

Just Dr Stromer’s notes, illustrations of its bones, and some photos of the original skeletons were all that remained.

Fortunately, we still have archived pictures of the skeleton before it was destroyed which show the creature's skull, spine and hind limbs.

"What we saw in the historical images surprised us all. The Egyptian dinosaur fossil depicted there differs significantly from more recent Carcharodontosaurus found in Morocco,” said Maximilian Kellermann, the study’s first author.

“Stromer’s original classification was thus incorrect. We identified a completely different, previously unknown predatory dinosaur species here and named it Tameryraptor markgrafi,” Dr Kellermann said.

Breaking down the meaning behind the genus name "Tameryraptor Markgraf", the "Tamery" part is the ancient name for Egypt while "markgrafi" is in honour of Dr Stromer’s fossil collector Richard Markgraf, who excavated the dinosaur’s skeleton.

So what were some of the dinosaur's key features?

From the photos, experts noted how the dinosaur had symmetrical teeth and a notable nasal horn.

Tameryraptor markgrafi reconstructionJoshua Knüppe

This latest discovery indicates there was a wider range of dinosaurs in this particular area of the world than we thought.

“This work shows that it can be worthwhile for palaeontologists to dig not only in the ground but also in old archives,” said Oliver Rauhut, another author of the study.

“However, a more comprehensive assessment of the Cretaceous predatory dinosaur fauna from the Bahariya Oasis would require the recovery of more fossils from the site,” Dr Rauhut said.

Elsewhere, huge dinosaur footprints were discovered as scientists found 'dinosaur highway'.

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