Dinosaur hunter identifies 110 million-year-old predators
The two predators roamed the Southern hemisphere some 110 million years ago, one using shark-like teeth to rip its prey apart, while the other likely feasted on prey like hyena.
They were the ancestors of predators even bigger than the most famous predator of all, T. rex. They dominated a territory far from where the “tyrant king’’ ever set foot.
(Courtesy of The University of Chicago)
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Bigger than T. rex
Paul Sereno and Gabrielle Lyon sent seven stories to the Chicago Sun-Times in late 2000, recording their dinosaur-hunting expedition. Their stories follow:
Dino hunters stumble onto unusual find
End of war brings hope for discovery
New find completes long-necked dino
Dino trip ends; lost world found
Special to the Sun-Times from Project Exploration, www.projectexploration.org
But they were unknown to science until they were unearthed and analyzed by famed University of Chicago dinosaur hunter Paul Sereno.
In the scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, Sereno and co-author Stephen Brusatte describe the two beasts. They named one Kryptops palaios, or “old hidden face,’’ because of a horny covering over its face. The other, they named Eocarcharia dinops, or “fierce-eyed dawn shark,’’ for its razor-sharp teeth and bony brow.
Both were about 25 feet long and stood 7 feet high at the hip. Kryptops had a short snout with teeth better for gnawing, leading the scientists to believe he was more of a scavenger.
“You don’t want a shortened snout if you are going after prey,’’ said Sereno.
Eocarcharia’s brow was so pronounced that Sereno thinks it was used for head-butting rivals to win over potential mates.
“The only thing I can think of is they were smacking each other with it,’’ Sereno said.
The dinosaur’s teeth were better suited for slicing, indicating they were more likely used to kill live prey.
Sereno and his team unearthed the partial skeleton and bones back in 2000, on a “remarkable’’ five-month expedition to the West African nation of Niger that he chronicled from the field for the Sun-Times. The expedition turned out to be a treasure trove: They found bones from about a dozen new species — of the total of 22 he has discovered — and also stumbled across one of the richest archeological sites that’s been found in the region.
Sereno is hoping a museum can be built in Niger to house what his team found — something he says the U.S. State Department and Niger’s government have discussed. He also wants to build a place in Chicago to show off his collection.
Beyond the physical characteristics, Brusatte, who worked with Sereno on the fossils at U. of C. as an undergraduate, said the find helps shed light on what life was in the Southern landmass called Gondwana before the continents split as we know them today.
The two predators and a third, previously discovered predator — Suchomimus — lived alongside SuperCroc, a 40-foot crocodile. (On the Niger expedition, Sereno also found the most-complete skeleton of a SuperCroc ever found.)
Brusatte, now a graduate student in Britain, likened that situation to the African savannah today. “Lions, cheetahs and hyenas all have to eat different things in different ways in order to survive, and to see something similar in a [100 million-year-old] fossil ecosystem is stunning,’’ Brusatte said by email.
Field Museum dinosaur curator Peter Makovicky said the discovery shows how much scientists can learn about everything from ecosystems to continental drift, as more species are unearthed.
“A lot of people think it’s T. Rex, it’s stegasaurus, it’s triceratops,’’ he said, but it’s much more than that. “Dinosaurs roamed the earth for 100 million years. We are continuously finding more and more and learning more and more from them.’’
