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June 25, 2009

A New, Giant Predatory Dinosaur From Spain

The Allosaurus skeleton on display at the Smithsonian.

The Allosaurus skeleton on display at the Smithsonian.

Scientists in Spain announced this week the discovery of a large tooth from a predatory dinosaur similar to Allosaurus. Found by local residents in Riodeva, Teruel, the nearly 4-inch-long tooth is the largest predatory dinosaur tooth yet found from the country. Just what dinosaur the tooth belonged to is as yet unknown. The scientists who described it for the journal Estudios Geologicos, as LiveScience reports, are pretty confident that it came from an allosaurid, and may be closely related to the as-yet-unknown dinosaur that left similar teeth in the strata of Portugal. Whatever the dinosaur was, though, it appears to have dined on sauropods. A bone from the sauropod Turiasaurus riodevensis found in the same area as the new tooth bears a large puncture mark that appears to have been made by a large predatory dinosaur. No doubt more exciting discoveries will emerge from Riodeva.



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