Bahariasaurus

Bahariasaurus
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 95 Ma
Vertebra of Bahariasaurus from specimen 1912 VIII 62
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade: Theropoda
Family: Bahariasauridae
Genus: Bahariasaurus
Stromer, 1934
Species:
B. ingens
Binomial name
Bahariasaurus ingens
Stromer, 1934
Synonyms

Bahariasaurus is an enigmatic genus of large theropod dinosaur. The genus is known to have included at least 1 species, Bahariasaurus ingens (meaning "huge Bahariya lizard"), which was found in North African rock layers dating to the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous. The only fossils confidently assigned to Bahariasaurus were found in the Bahariya Formation of the Bahariya (Arabic: الواحة البحرية meaning the "northern oasis") oasis in Egypt by Ernst Stromer but were destroyed during a World War II bombing raid with the same raid taking out the holotype of Spinosaurus and Aegyptosaurus among other animals found in the Bahariya Formation. While there have been more fossils assigned to the genus such as some from the Farak Formation of Niger, these remains are referred to with much less certainty.[1] Bahariasaurus is, by most estimations, one of the largest theropods, approaching the height and length of other large bodied theropods such as Tyrannosaurus rex and the contemporaneous Carcharodontosaurus. The aforementioned estimations tend to put it at around 11–12.2 metres (36–40 ft) in length and 4-4.8 tonnes in overall weight.[2][3][4]

  1. ^ "Megalosauroidea". www.theropoddatabase.com. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Holtz2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Paul, Gregory S. (2016). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-78684-190-2. OCLC 985402380.
  4. ^ Dinosaur Facts and Figures. 2019-06-25. ISBN 978-0-691-18031-1.