Move over T. rex, there's a new bad boy in town. Scientists have discovered the biggest and baddest carnivorous dinosaur to have ever walked on European soil.
Meet the Torvosaurus gurneyi, a 32-foot monster predator that overwhelmed its prey with sheer brute force. The giant carnivore was discovered by researchers from the New University of Lisbon in Portugal. The researchers were studying what they thought were the bones of Tovosaurus tanneri, a different yet related species found in North America, when they noticed a number of key elements hinting at the possibility of a new species. As the scientists inspected the bones, they found that the tail vertebra had features not normally found in T. tanneri. Moreover, they also have a jaw bone that had a smaller number of teeth. After further study, New University of Lisbon Ph.D. student Christophe Hendrickx and his supervisor Octávio Mateus realized they were dealing with a new species.
Hendrickx and Mateus named their new find Torvosaurus gurneyi. The researchers named the dinosaur after James Gurney, the illustrator and creator of the hit book series Dinotopia.
"Today a new dinosaur is being introduced to the world, and I'm thrilled and honored that the paleontologists decided to name it after me. It's called Torvosaurus gurneyi," said Gurney in a blog post.
"Next time I return to doing paintings of Dinotopia, I look forward to visualizing Torvosaurus-perhaps with Mr. Hendrickx riding it," Gurney added.
Gurney started Dinotopia over 20 years ago and his books have served as the inspiration for a new generation of paleontologists. Gurney wrote numerous Dinotopia books that have been the genesis of a TV series, a miniseries, an animated film and various video games.
"I always admired the reconstruction of this utopian world where dinosaurs and humans live together, it is also an excellent 'paleoartist' and teacher, " said Hendrickx.
T. gurneyi is quite possibly the biggest predatory dinosaur ever found in Europe and the large carnivore could have roamed parts of France, Spain and Portugal around 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period.
"The fauna of what is now Portugal was extremely diverse in the late Jurassic," said Mateus. "This new species of carnivorous dinosaur increases a little more the diversity of the dinosaurs of Portugal. It shows that there was an ongoing mechanism of speciation that occurred during the Jurassic, when the Atlantic was well formed and Europe was an archipelago."
Hendrickx and Mateus have published their findings in the online journal PLOS One.
