A 33-foot-long carnivorous dinosaur discovered in Portugal may be the largest predator ever found in Europe.
Weighing in at 4 or 5 tons, the Torvosaurus gurneyi was unearthed at the Lourinha Formation site in Portugal and has been detailed in a new PLOS ONE study.
"I suppose it wouldn't be a good idea to cross the way of this dinosaur," said Christophe Hendrickx, doctoral candidate at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal, as quoted by CNN.
Hendrickx and paleontologist Octavio Mateus headed the research and believe that the powerful carnivore is likely a new species of dinosaur.
While similar to the Torvosaurus tanneri, which is found in North America, the new dinosaur species has fewer teeth, according to the CNN report.
Although smaller than the Tyrannosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus dinosaurs, the Torvosaurus gurneyi was still a fearsome predator with teeth nearly 4 inches long. Scientists haven't yet hypothesized what color the carnivore was, but they believe it may have been covered with proto-feathers.
Scientists believe the Torvosaurus gurneyi was alive around 150 million years ago. The predator lived in a tropical environment where temperatures stayed around 86 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit and likely roamed among a varied group of dinosaurs.
"The fauna was certainly dominated by dinosaurs," Hendrickx said, as reported by CNN.
The researchers have proposed that an upper jaw bone, teeth and partial tail vertebrae discovered in 2003 belong to this new species, as well as other material found at the same site, including a tibia, a femur and embryos.
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