Europe's largest land predator found in Isle of Wright

[dragon53]

LINK: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10899945/Isle-Wight-dinosaur-largest-land-predator-roam-Europe.html

[CarnotaurusKing]

What about Torvosaurus? T. gurneyi could measure upto 11.7 meters long, according to Molina-Perez and Larramendi. And while this Daily Mail article says "may be the largest land predator in Europe", the BBC article straight up says "largest ever land dinosaur in Europe"  Even bigger than Pelorosaurus, Lusotitan, and "Francoposeidon"? Sure it is. And I bet they said "land dinosaur" so they wouldn't get confused with the "sea dinosaurs" like plesiosaurs and the Temnodontosaurus from a while back 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-61743759.amp

Sorry for the tangent. Minus the clickbait, the discovery is pretty cool though. Especially with how the Isle of Wight seemed to have been a haven for spinosaurs. I wonder how they all coexisted in the same area at roughly the same time.

[Newt]

Darren Naish's blog post on the critter is here. According to Naish, the vertebrae are comparable to, perhaps even larger than those of Spinosaurus, but as the specimen is so scrappy they chose to underplay the size estimate. Here's hoping more complete remains turn up!

[Leyster]

@Newt dimensions are closer to the holotype of Spinosaurus. Which is in the ten meters range.

@Carnoking That book is pretty sensationalistic on specimens of which we only have scrappy remains. And restorations in that book were largely based on Hartman's Torvosaurus, which is a composite of immature specimens and it's too elongated. I recall that some reliable comparisons gave gurney a 10,5 meters lenght more or less. Pheraps less.

[CarnotaurusKing]

L @Leyster Fair enough. And based on what Dr Naish is saying, the length given might be an underestimate anyway. Very cool. Hoping it gets a name soon.

[Leyster]

C @CarnotaurusKing I don't thing it'll get named unless more material surfaces, it's not diagnostic enough atm.