ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 17, 1996 TAG: 9605170065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press WASHINGTON
It was a fierce and toothy hunter that raced across lush African plains to catch and rip apart its prey 90 million years ago.
``I would not have wanted to be around when it was on the prowl,'' said Paul Sereno, a University of Chicago researcher who discovered fossils of the previously unknown dinosaur in Morocco.
Sereno unveiled his discovery Thursday and said he named the species Deltadromeus agilis, or ``agile delta runner'' because the bones show it was ``the most slender and agile large predator that we know of.
``It would have been a really ferocious, fast-moving hunter,'' he said. ``It was about 25 feet long and its stride would have been as much as 9 feet on the run. It looks like it could really, really move.''
Sereno, in a study to be published today in the journal Science, also announced discovery of the most complete skull ever found for Carcharondontosaurus saharicus, an animal that may have been the largest and most fearsome in the world 90 million years ago.
With teeth five inches long set into 5-foot jaws, the animal would have been able to gobble a human in a single bite. The skull was lightly built and ``narrow as a pancake,'' said Sereno, but it was supported by a long and powerful neck.
Carcharondontosaurus saharicus, which means ``shark-toothed lizard from the Sahara,'' closely resembled Tyrannosaurus rex.
``They were examples of independent evolution taking place on separate continents,'' Sereno said. ``They independently reached about the largest size possible for a dinosaurian carnivore. They are right at the top in size for predators on land.''
They were about 45 feet long, stood 11 feet at the hip and weighed seven tons, Sereno said.
But they were no geniuses. The Carcharondontosaurus brain was only 1/15 the size of a human brain, he said.
``This animal had striking teeth,'' said Sereno. ``They are blade-shaped, slightly curved, with a strange group of wrinkles along the edge of the crown. They would have eaten and sliced their food differently than the Tyrannosaurus.''
Both Carcharondontosaurus and Deltadromeus agilis ran on their hind legs and probably had smaller forelimbs, a form closely resembling the T. rex.
Sereno said, however, that Deltadromeus was a ``pursuit hunter'' while Carcharondontosaurus ``probably captured its prey by ambush.''
Fossils for both animals were found in a Moroccan sandstone formation called Kem Kem, on the edge of the Sahara Desert.
Sediments and other fossils near the dinosaur remains put their age at 90 million to 92 million years, long before the earliest known T-rex developed in North America, he said.
``Africa was different then,'' Sereno said. ``It was much wetter. There were wooded areas, and large rivers with crocodiles, turtles, crab and shrimp. It was a rich environment.''
Sereno said the fossils suggest there was a rapid and independent evolution of meat-eating species in North America, Africa and South America after the continents drifted apart 100 million years ago.
David B. Weishampel, a dinosaur paleontologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said the find is ``rather significant'' because it represents ``a new group of meat-eating dinosaurs we have not recognized before.''
But he said Sereno's conclusions about distribution of the species are not strongly supported by the fossils.
``We don't know from this how abruptly these guys evolved,'' said Weishampel.
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