Hot off the presses! A new carnivorous dinosaur from Portugal has been officially named – Torvosaurus gurneyi.
The fact that Torvosaurus came from Portugal isn’t a revelation – it was, after all, featured prominently in an episode of the Discovery Channel mini-series Dinosaur Revolution (which I didn’t particularly care for). For years, people have known that there have been megalosaurid dinosaur fossils from Portugal, specifically the Lourinha Formation, which dates to the late Jurassic Period, about 150 million years ago. These fossils were tentatively ascribed to the species Torvosaurus tanneri, known from the Morrison Formation of the USA. However, upon closer examination, there are a few minor differences in the bone structure, so the Portuguese specimens were named Torvosaurus gurneyi, named after the famous paleo-artist James Gurney.
Torvosaurus was one of the last megalosaurid theropods, as they were being replaced by the allosaurids and the coelurosaurids. Torvosaurus and its kind ruled Europe during the middle and late Jurassic Period. It measured 30-35 feet long, giving Allosaurus a serious run for its money, and possibly weighed somewhere in the realm of four to five tons.
As if this wasn’t news enough, there are some dinosaur embryos from Portugal which might belong to Torvosaurus as well.
For more info, check out the websites listed below:
- SciNews.com. “Torvosaurus gurneyi: New Giant Dinosaur Discovered in Portugal” (March 6, 2014). http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-torvosaurus-gurneyi-giant-dinosaur-portugal-01794.html
- National Geographic Daily News. “Largest Predatory Dinosaur in Europe Found, Was ‘Big Bruiser'”, by Christine Dell’Amore (March 5, 2014). http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140305-dinosaurs-biggest-europe-torvosaurus-gurneyi-animals-science/
- Nature. “Filling the gaps of dinosaur eggshell phylogeny: Late Jurassic theropod clutch with embryos from Portugal”, by Ricardo Araújo et al (May 30, 2013). http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130530/srep01924/full/srep01924.html
