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Description
Carcharodontosaurus
is one of the longest and heaviest known carnivorous dinosaurs, with various
scientists proposing length estimates ranging between 12 and 13 m
(39-43.5 ft) and weight estimates of about 8 tons.
Carcharodontosaurus
was a carnivore, with enormous jaws and long, serrated teeth up to eight
inches long. 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 for C. saharicus,
and the skull of C. iguidensis
is reported to have been slightly larger at 1.75 m in length (5.5 ft).
Currently, the largest theropod skull now belongs to another huge
carcharodontosaurid
dinosaur, the closely related
Giganotosaurus (with
skull length estimates up to 1.95 m) (6.3 ft).
The
Endocranial cast, of
the impression of the brain on the inside of the skull, and
inner ear anatomy of
Carcharodontosaurus saharicus
resembled modern
Crocodylia. The size of
the
cerebrum relative to
the total brain was similar to modern
reptiles, but small
relative to
coelurosaurian theropods
and birds.
Discovery, etymology and taxonomic history
| Scientific Classification |
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Carcharodontosaurus
fossils were first
found by Charles Depéret and J. Savornin in the
Continental intercalaire
of
Algeria (dating to the
Albian stage) 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." Further fossils were collected from the
Baharija Formation of
Egypt, dating to the
slightly later
Cenomanian stage. These
first fossils of Carcharodontosaurus
were destroyed during World War II. However,
cranial material from a
Carcharodontosaurus
was again discovered in the
Kem Kem Formation of
Morocco in 1995 by
paleontologist
Paul Sereno. Stephen
Brusatte and Paul Sereno reported a second species of
Carcharodontosaurus, found
in the
Echkar Formation of
Niger, differing from
C. saharicus in
some aspects of the
maxilla and braincase.
This second species, which was discovered in
Niger in 1997, was
named C. iguidensis
in December 2007.
In popular
culture
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| Carcharodontosaurus tooth (Source) |
Carcharodontosaurus
was featured in an episode of the television series
Dinosaur Planet,
titled "Alpha's Egg". The program erroneously depicted
Carcharodontosaurus living
in South America and
preying on the
sauropod
Saltasaurus. In
reality, Carcharodontosaurus
remains have only been found in northern Africa. Additionally, while
Saltasaurus lived during
the
Campanian and
Maastrichtian stages of
the Late Cretaceous, Carcharodontosaurus
is only known from formations dating from the
Albian to
Cenomanian stages, over
ten million years earlier. No carcharodontosaurid dinosaurs lived alongside
Saltasaurus.
Carcharodontosaurus was
also featured briefly in the 2009 documentary
Monsters Resurrected,
where it was depicted attacking contemporary dinosaurs such as
Paralititan and
Spinosaurus.
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