Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of carcharodontosaurid theropod dinosaur based on depictions of the now-destroyed specimen from the Bahariya Formation in Egypt.
The newly-identified dinosaur lived in what is now Africa during the Cretaceous period, some 95 million years ago.
Dubbed Tameryraptor markgrafi, the ancient species is a member of a group of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs called Carcharodontosauridae.
The dinosaur’s fossilized remains were found in 1914 approximately 2 km (1.2 miles) from Ain Gedid on the Western foot of the Gebel Harra of the Bahariya Formation.
The fossils were first described in 1931 by the German paleontologist Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach as the carcharodontosaurid species Carcharodontosaurus saharicus.
“In 1931, Stromer described the first partial carcharodontosaurid skeleton from the Cretaceous of Northern Africa,” said lead author Dr. Maximilian Kellermann and his colleagues from the Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns-Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.
“The specimen came from the Bahariya Formation, from a locality in the northern part of the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt and comprised skull fragments (maxillae, nasals, partial braincase), vertebrae, partial pubis and ischium, femora, and a fibula.”
“Realizing common features of an associated tooth, Stromer referred the specimen to Dryptosaurus saharicus, but proposed a new genus name, Carcharodontosaurus, for this species.”
According to the authors, the original specimen was destroyed during the World War II.
The only surviving data consist of Stromer’s descriptions and depictions of the specimen, along with an endocast of the braincase, currently housed in Berlin.
“What we saw in the historical images surprised us all,” Dr. Kellermann said.
“The Egyptian dinosaur fossil depicted there differs significantly from more recent Carcharodontosaurus finds in Morocco.”
“Stromer’s original classification was thus incorrect. We identified a completely different, previously unknown predatory dinosaur species here and named it Tameryraptor markgrafi.”
Tameryraptor markgrafi was nearly 10 m (33 feet) long, had symmetrical teeth and a prominent nasal horn.
“We found that the dinosaur was closely related to the North African and South American carcharodontosaurs, as well as to a group of predatory dinosaurs from Asia, the metriacanthosaurs,” said Dr. Oliver Rauhut, senior author of the study.
“Presumably, the dinosaur fauna of North Africa was much more diverse than we previously thought.”
“This work shows that it can be worthwhile for paleontologists to dig not only in the ground, but also in old archives.”
“However, a more comprehensive assessment of the Cretaceous predatory dinosaur fauna from the Bahariya Oasis would require the recovery of more fossils from the site.”
The team’s work was published in the journal PLoS ONE.
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M. Kellermann et al. 2025. Re-evaluation of the Bahariya Formation carcharodontosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) and its implications for allosauroid phylogeny. PLoS ONE 20 (1): e0311096; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311096
