Dinosaur remains have been found by archaeologists in southwest England, which could lead to the largest land predator ever roaming Europe.
Paleontologists from the University of Southampton identified the prehistoric bones as belonging to a type of two-legged, crocodile-faced predatory dinosaur known as spinosaurids.
There is not much information on the length of such a creature, but it would have been more than 32 feet long and lived around 125 million years ago.
It was a huge animal probably weighed several tonnes, according to PhD student Chris Barker.
Judging by some of their dimensions, it appears that this dinosaur is the largest in Europe we have discovered so far.
“It’s unfortunate that it is only known from its fossilized remains, but these fossils are enough to prove it was a magnificent land animal.”
Today, scientists discovered the remains of a long-extinct species of koala.
Isle of Wight is a rich repository of dinosaur remains primarily found on the Isle of Wight. 29 different species as well as fossils, skeletons and other telltale signs about life on this planet can be found in its soft clays and sandstones that erode quickly.
One such recent discovery that has been nicknamed the “white rock spinosaurid” after the geological layer in which it was found. Researchers said that it is still not known yet what a formal scientific name will be and is being referred to as “white rock spinosaurid.”
Scientists said, the dinosaur would have lived at the beginning of an era of rising sea levels and would have stalked lagoonal waters and sandflats in search of food.
The unusual, crocodile-like skulls allowed spinosaurids to hunt prey not just on land, but also in the water.
The team now hopes to strip thin sections of the material to scan the microscopic internal properties of the bone. This will provide information on a possible growth rate and age of the animal.
Jeremy Lockwood, co-author of the research, said that Nick Chase, one of Britain’s most skilled dinosaur hunters, sadly passed away before the COVID epidemic.
“Once I found a lump of dinosaur pelvis with tunnels bored into it, each about the size of my finger. It was caused by scavenger beetles.”
The discovery of the white rock spinosaurid follows a 2016 study published by the same team, who found two new spino-saurid species.
The new study supports a previous argument that spinosaurs originated and diversified in western Europe before expanding to other areas of the world, co-author Darren Naish said.
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