A 120-million-year-old fossil forgotten in a museum for nearly a century revealed a terrifying new dinosaur that may have been more dangerous to humans than a T. The tiger-sized predator also provides the first evidence of megaraptorans in Europe, helping explain how these mysterious dinosaurs eventually became gigantic hunters. A forgotten fossil reveals a fearsome dinosaur with giant claws.
It lived in what was likely a seasonally wet-to-dry floodplain environment and is surrounded by other dinosaurs including large long-necked rebbachisaurid sauropods (directly behind Invictibellatrix, center) and relatives of Iguanodon (right). A spinosaurid theropod, potentially the apex predator of the time, fishes (left). Invictibellatrix has just caught and is consuming two small mammals.
Gymnosperms dominate the environment as flowering plants (angiosperms) were not common at this time. Other reptiles including relatives to modern lizards, crocodiles and turtles enjoy the warm Early Cretaceous weather of the UK. About the size of a large tiger and armed with enormous curved claws, the animal roamed what is now Britain about 120 million years ago.
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