WASHINGTON A new species of dinosaur, with huge curved claws and a skull like a crocodile, has been dug up from an African desert, scientists said recently. The new species, dubbed suchomimus tenerensis, ran on two legs, was about 36 feet (11 meters) long and had a sail-like fin on its back. It lived 100 million years ago in what is now the Tenere Desert of Niger. We had been looking for really excellent fossils, not just of dinosaurs but of other organisms as well, Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who led the study, said in a statement.

It would have been a fearsome animal that probably hunted fish as well as land animals, they reported in the journal Science. It seems to have had a long, narrow head strongly resembling that of a crocodile a much more ancient species that, unlike the dinosaur, has endured. The name suchomimus comes from the Greek word for crocodile. It had pointy, cone-shaped teeth that would have been well-suited to snatching and holding onto prey in much the way crocodiles ambush their food today.

The bones of related dinosaurs known as spinosaurids, which include the more famous tyrannosaurus and velociraptor, have been found widely around the world. Finding this particular species of spinosaurid in Africa indicates they moved around even more than had been thought, the researchers said. They represent one of the most successful radiations of terrestrial predators in Earth history, Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland wrote in a commentary.

(Reuter)