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Duriavenator is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now England about 168 million years ago. Fossil jaw bones of a dinosaur (illustration pictured) collected near Sherborne, Dorset, in 1882 were considered by Richard Owen to belong to Megalosaurus bucklandii. It was recognised as a different species by 1964, moved to M. hesperis in 1974, and moved again to its own genus, Duriavenator 'Dorset hunter', in 2008. It was about 5 to 7 m (16 to 23 ft) long and weighed about 1 tonne (2,000 lb). The upper jaw's main bone is distinctive; its upper surface has a deep groove with numerous air-filled openings, and its lower has smaller foramina that connected with the upper jaw's front bone. It had about 4 teeth in the premaxilla, 14 to 16 in the rest of the upper jaw, and 14 to 15 in the lower jaw. The long lower front teeth may have been used for plucking and grasping food. Phylogenetic analyses have shown it to be among the oldest tetanuran theropods, and to belong in the family Megalosauridae. (Full article...)