A NEW study of a huge dinosaur jaw has revealed that the giant meat eater would have roamed around Uzbekistan 90 million years ago.
The 26-foot-long creature is thought to have weighed around 2,200 pounds.
This is an artist’s impression of the carcharodontosaur Ulughbegsaurus next to the smaller tyrannosaur Timurlengia[/caption]
This is a reconstruction of the dinosaur’s jaw and shark-like teeth[/caption]
It would have been longer than an African elephant and had sharp shark-like teeth.
The creature has been called the Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis.
Its jaw was found in found in Uzbekistan’s Kyzylkum Desert in the 1980s.
A new study claims the terrifying creature is a cousin of the T-rex.
This would mean it was a a carcharodontosaur or a “shark-toothed” dinosaur, according to Science Alert.
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Carcharodontosaurs are said to have been similar to tyrannosaurs but slightly more slender.
If the study findings are correct, that would make the dinosaur the first carcharodontosaur to be discovered in Central Asia.
U. uzbekistanensis would have been an apex predator in that ecosystem, towering over other beasts like the tyrannosaur Timurlengia.
Study lead researcher Kohei Tanaka told Live Science: “Our discovery indicates carcharodontosaurs were still dominant predators in Asia 90 million years ago.”
You can read the full study online in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
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