Huge new dinosaur in Portugal was predator king
Portuguese scientists identify largest land predator discovered in Europe
A new dinosaur species discovered in Portugal dominated the food chain 150 million years ago – the Tyrannosaurus rex of its time, researchers said on Wednesday.
The new species is the largest land predator discovered in Europe and one of the largest worldwide of the Jurassic era, said authors Christophe Hendrickx and Octavio Mateus of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Museu da Lourinha.
This is the equivalent of T rex but 80 million years before
The Torvosaurus gurneyi, like T rex, was a bipedal carnivore with blade-like teeth more than 10 centimetres in length, they said in a report published in the US journal PLOS ONE.
“This was clearly a fierce predator,” Mateus said. “Wherever he arrived, he was the owner and master. No one could rival Torvosaurusduring the late Jurassic. This is the equivalent of T rex but 80 million years before.”
The scientists estimate Torvosaurus gurneyi grew up to 10 metres long and weighed some four or five tons. Its skull measured nearly 115 centimetres long, smaller than the T rex, but not by a huge margin.
The fossils found in Portugal closely resemble those of a North American dinosaur – the Torvosaurus tanneri – and indeed at first the scientists thought the two specimens must be from the same species.