Carcharodontosaurus
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[Photo] Life restoration of Carcharodontosaurus saharicus, a theropod from the middle Cretaceous of North Africa, pencil drawing. Date March 6, 2007. Author Arthur Weasley http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ArthurWeasley
Fossil range: mid Cretaceous
Carcharodontosaurus (/k??ː.k??ː.????.??d??n.t??.s??ː.????s/) meaning 'Shark Tooth Reptile' (Greek karcharo meaning 'Shark', odonto meaning 'teeth', after the resemblance of the teeth to those of Carcharodon sharks, and sauros meaning 'lizard') was a gigantic carnivorous carcharodontosaurid dinosaur that lived around 98 to 93 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period. It was nearly as long as Tyrannosaurus, growing to an estimated 12 meters (40 feet) and weighing up to 4 tons.
Description
Carcharodontosaurus was a carnivore, with enormous jaws and long, serrated teeth up to eight inches long. It may have hunted in packs, but no fossil evidence of this exists. It may have been a scavenger as well as an active predator.
Paleontologists once thought that Carcharodontosaurus had the longest skull of any of the theropod dinosaurs. However, the premaxilla and quadrate bones were missing from the original African skull, which led to misinterpretion of its actual size by researchers. A more modest length of 1.6 meters (5.2 ft) has now been proposed. Thus, the honor of the largest theropod skull now belongs to another huge carcharodontosaurid dinosaur, the closely related Giganotosaurus.
Carcharodontosaurus had long, muscular legs, and fossilized trackways indicate that it could run about 30 km/h, though there is some controversy as to whether it actually did. At four tons, a forward fall would have been deadly to Carcharodontosaurus, due to the inability of its small arms to brace the animal when it landed.
The brain endocast and inner ear anatomy of Carcharodontosaurus saharicus resembled modern Crocodylia. The size of the cerebrum relative to the total brain was similar to modern non-avian reptiles, but small relative to coelurosaurian theropods and birds.
Discovery, Etymology and Taxonomic History
Carcharodontosaurus fossils were first found by Charles Dep??ret and J. Savornin in North Africa in 1927. Originally called 'Megalosaurus' saharicus (many theropods were once erroneously referred to as Megalosaurus), its name was changed in 1931 by Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach to that used today. Stromer named Carcharodontosaurus "for its mainly Carcharodon-like teeth", which were "not recurved, almost bilaterally symmetrical but with convex edges." These first fossils of Carcharodontosaurus were destroyed during World War II. However, cranial material from a Carcharodontosaurus was again discovered in Morocco in 1996 by paleontologist Paul Sereno. Stephen Brusatte and Paul Sereno reported a second species of Carcharodontosaurus differing from C. saharicus in some aspects of the maxilla and braincase. The new species, which was discovered in Niger, has not yet been given a name.
In popular culture
Carcharodontosaurus is not generally well known to the general public. However, it has appeared in certain video games, such as Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis and ParaWorld. It also appeared in a discovery channel four-part special, "Dinosaur Planet" in the episode "Alpha's Egg".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcharodontosaurus
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