Carcharodontosaurus

Carcharodontosaurus was a carnivorous (meat-eating) dinosaur that lived in Africa during Cretaceous period. between approximately 98 to 93 million years ago.

Carcharodontosaurus was 36 to 44 feet (11.1 to 13.5 meters) long. tall, and probably weighed approximately 6 tons. For a while it was thought to have had the largest skull of any Theropod dinosaur (partly because of misinterpretation of incomplete fossils), but today that honor is held by its relative Giganotosaurus.

The first fossils of Carcharodontosaurus were found in 1927, are were initially named "Megalosaurus saharicus" (the name "Megalosaurus" was once used to refer to numerous different Theropod dinosaurs). The name "Carcharodontosaurus" was chosen by Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach in 1931 and refers to the animals to the animal's shark-like teeth (von Reichenbach considered the teeth to resemble those of Carcharodon, the Genus of sharks which includes the modern Great White Shark, and the extinct giant shark, Megalodon). Unfortunately, all earliest found fossils of Carcharodontosaurus were destroyed during World War II - however, fortunately, new fossils have subsequently been found in Morocco (1995) and Niger (1997).