University of Chicago Paleontologist Paul Sereno shows the teeth of a "Suchomimus tenerensis" during the unveiling of the fossil he found in the Sahara, Thursday Nov. 12, 1998 at the National Geographic Society in Washington. AP Photo/Copyright 1998 National Geographic Society

New dinosaur species found in Africa

Web posted November 13, 1998

By Paul Recer
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- It was a monster dinosaur built for catching fish, with razor teeth, a long snout and foot-long curved claws that could hook and hold the big ones.

Researchers who found the fossil of this 36-foot-long animal believe it is a previously unknown species big enough and mean enough to have dominated its world 100 million years ago.

The new species, to be called Suchomimus tenerensis, ``was an impressive-sized beast,'' said Paul Sereno, a University of Chicago paleontologist who found the fossils last year in Africa.

``If you were standing next to it, your eye level would be at its knee,'' Sereno said at a news conference at National Geographic headquarters Thursday. ``This animal was easily the size of Tyrannosaurus rex. And it was not fully grown.''

Suchomimus apparently was a fish eater, said Sereno, but it could threaten virtually anything around it.

Artist's rendering of a 36-foot long dinosaur whose bones were discovered in the Sahara by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno. The animal's skull resembles a crocodile's. AP Photo/Copyright 1998 National Geographic Society

``With its forearms and its jaws, it would have been able to take down just about anything,'' Sereno said. ``It was the dominant predator of its time.''

The animal was generally shaped like the T. rex, with two large hind legs, a powerful tail, forearms and a toothy head, Sereno said in a study being published Friday in the journal Science.

But Suchomimus was a member of a group of animals called spinosaurids that lived in the lands that became Africa, Europe and South America between 90 million and 120 million years ago. At that time, T. rex was just emerging in North America.

The discovery ``provides important new insights on the evolution and adaptation'' of the spinosaur group of dinosaurs, said Thomas R. Holtz Jr., a University of Maryland researcher.

The fossil was found in Niger, a central African country on the southwestern edge of the Sahara. In the dinosaur era, the area ``was a lush climate that could support many different species of dinosaurs,'' Sereno said.

The animal's most distinctive feature is its long, pointed jaw, armed with about 100 teeth. The end of the jaw is tipped with an extra chin-like projection, called a rosette, that actually contains the largest teeth. The top and bottom teeth mesh together to securely hook prey, a design common among fish-eating animals.

``The jaw is really very much like a crocodile's,'' Sereno said. ``It was built for snaring and swallowing.''

Suchomimus' teeth also are typical of fish-eating crocodiles, lightly curved and hooked and not designed for chewing.

The animal's thumbs were about 16 inches long and tipped with 12-inch claws curved like a sickle. The two fingers on each hand had shorter, curved claws.

``The hand is amazing,'' Sereno said. ``It was probably ideal for fishing, for grabbing ... into those large fish.''

It's not known how the newly discovered Suchomimus died, but it apparently was swept into a river, rolled over and over and was then buried by soil. When found in extreme desert, wind had eroded the sands that had covered it for 100 million years.

Other fossils found nearby suggest the area had been lush, with water and fish that attracted many predators.

At least four species of fish up to six feet long lived in the waters where Suchomimus hunted, Sereno said. There also were giant crocodiles.

``The most common thing we stumbled on is a very long-snouted and very large crocodile,'' said Sereno. ``We collected a six-foot skull. The crocodile would have been about 50 feet long.''

It is likely, he said, that the giant crocodiles and Suchomimus competed for the same large fish, ``and I imagine the two squared off.''

Soaring above were flying dinosaurs with 12-foot wing spans, poised to attack from the air with wicked teeth and claws, he said. Fossils for those animals also were found.

``We think that area was pretty well maxed-out so far as the number of large animals you could put into that environment,'' said Sereno.

And ruling it all, he said, was Suchomimus.