Dubbed the ‘White Rock spinosaurid,’ the new dinosaur is ‘one of Europe’s largest ever land-based hunters.’
Life reconstruction of the White Rock spinosaurid. Image credit: Anthony Hutchings.
The White Rock spinosaurid lived during the Early Cretaceous epoch, approximately 125 million years ago.
It measured over 10 m (33 feet) long and belonged to Spinosauridae, a family of two-legged, crocodile-faced predatory dinosaurs.
“This was a huge animal, exceeding 10 m in length and probably several tons in weight,” said Dr. Chris Barker, a Ph.D. student at the University of Southampton.
“Judging from some of the dimensions, it appears to represent one of the largest predatory dinosaur ever found in Europe — maybe even the biggest yet known.”
“It’s a shame it’s only known from a small amount of material, but these are enough to show it was an immense creature.”
The fossilized remains of the White Rock spinosaurid — huge pelvic and tail vertebrae — were recovered from the Vectis Formation on the Isle of Wight, England.
“Most of these amazing fossils were found by Nick Chase, one of Britain’s most skilled dinosaur hunters,” said Jeremy Lockwood, a Ph.D. student at the University of Portsmouth and the Natural History Museum, London.
“I was searching for remains of this dinosaur with Nick and found a lump of pelvis with tunnels bored into it, each about the size of my index finger.”
“We think they were caused by bone eating larvae of a type of scavenging beetle. It’s an interesting thought that this giant killer wound up becoming a meal for a host of insects.”
Position of the White Rock spinosaurid’s best preserved bones. Imager credit: Chris Barker & Dan Folkes.
“Unusually, this specimen eroded out of the Vectis Formation, which is notoriously poor in dinosaur fossils,” said Dr. Neil Gostling, a paleobiologist at the University of Southampton.
“It’s likely to be the youngest spinosaur material yet known from the UK.”
According to the team, the Vectis Formation preserves the beginning of a period of rising sea levels, where the ‘White Rock spinosaurid’ stalked lagoonal waters and sandflats in search of food.
“Because it’s only known from fragments at the moment, we haven’t given it a formal scientific name,” said Dr. Darren Naish, a paleontologist at the University of Southampton.
“We hope that additional remains will turn up in time.”
“This new animal bolsters our previous argument that spinosaurid dinosaurs originated and diversified in western Europe before becoming more widespread.”
The team’s paper appears today in the journal PeerJ.
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Chris Barker et al. 2022. A European giant: a large spinosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Vectis Formation (Wealden Group, Early Cretaceous). PeerJ 10: e13543; doi: 10.7717/peerj.13543
Source link: https://www.sci.news/paleontology/white-rock-spinosaurid-10887.html
