Sauroniops | 3D Dinopedia

Sauroniops

Period of life:

98-93 mya

Period:

Cretaceous period

Habitat:

Floodplains

Taxonomy:

Theropods

Height:

3.5 m

Countries:

Cretaceous period Sauroniops | 3D Dinopedia

Sauroniops (98-93 mya)

Sauroniops is a large carcharodontosaurid that lived about 140 million years ago in the southeast of present-day Morocco at the beginning of the Lower Cretaceous. There, presumably, in 2007, bone fragments of this previously unknown dinosaur species were first found, but they were classified only in 2012, all that time experts studied the find and tried to find out what this ancient carnivorous predator could look like. Today, scientists agree that the physique of sauroniops resembled a tyrannosaur, but its size was smaller.

The length of the predator was about 9 meters, it reached a height of 3 meters, weighed about 2-3 tons. Paleontologists also believe that Sauroniops was distinguished from other dinosaurs by a massive outgrowth on the head: its bone was extremely thickened to seventy-three millimeters. Scientists have explained this thickening by the evolutionary adaptation of the skull of sauroniops with frequent intraspecific fights with the head. Sauroniops lived on the banks of a large river delta, in a hot and humid environment rich in fish and crocodiles.

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