Meaning - Carcharodontosaurus means “shark-toothed lizard”
Carnivore (meat-eater). Carcharodontosaurus was a large, fierce predator that could kill even large sauropods; Carcharodontosaurus may also have been a scavenger.
Length - 26-44 feet (8-14 m) long
|WHEN IT LIVED||
Middle Cretaceous period, about 110 to 90 million years ago.
|WHERE IT LIVED||
Fossils have been found in North Africa.
Carcharodontosaurus was first known from an incomplete North African skull and a few bones found by Depret and Savornin in 1927 (originally called Megalosaurus saharicus). These fossils were destroyed during World War II. In 1996, Paul Sereno and his team found another Carcharodontosaurus in North Africa; it was even larger than the older specimen.
Carcharodontosaurus was a huge meat eating dinosaur from the Cretaceous period. This North African carnosaur had a massive tail, a bulky body, and heavy bones. Its arms were short and had three-fingered hands with sharp claws. Although Carcharodontosaurus was larger than T. rex, its brain was smaller. Carcharodontosaurus was closely related to Giganotosaurus but not to T. rex. Carcharodontosaurus was a more primitive dinosaur than T. rex.