How shark-toothed dinosaurs came to rule the world

[FfFfFfFF 58,118]

For years, paleontologists and dinosaur aficionados alike have debated what is the largest landdwelling carnivore of all time. In the one corner, there’s Tyrannosaurus rex, the terror of prehistoric North America. In the other, Giganotosaurus — an equally large dinosaur that stalked ancient Patagonia, and one of the last of an impressive lineage that ruled for tens of millions of years before tyrannosaurs rose to prominence.

Over time, both tyrannosaurs and carcharodontosaurs thrived in the Mesozoic world, but in a back-and-forth dance that played out over time and space.

The earliest tyrannosaurs were small, raptorlike animals that evolved around 160 million years ago. 

To date, the earliest trace of the carcharodontosaurs comes from southeastern Romania. It’s a tooth estimated to be more than 132 million years old, from the earliest part of the Cretaceous, and had previously been misidentified as that of a different carnivorous dinosaur.

“There was nothing inevitable about the rise of tyrannosaurs,” Brusatte says. In fact, it seems that the carcharodontosaurs held them back. 

“It seems like tyrannosaurs exploded to huge size only after the carcharodontosaurs went extinct, or became much less common,” Brusatte says.

Despite their importance to ancient food webs, though, paleontologists are really just getting to know these titanic hunters. They must have hunted and fed in a different way than tyrannosaurs — their skeletons make that clear. But, Brusatte notes, “I’d love to know if carcharodontosaurs really did hunt the colossal titanosaurian sauropods,” or immense long-necked dinosaurs that occupied the same habitats.

Source and full article: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/how-shark-toothed-dinosaurs-came-to-rule-the-world

[Bonkers 30,860]

Bring them back.  Come thru Jurassic Park scientists. 

[GaGaAst 13,124]

Meanwhile, Katy Perry-

Roar Roar Roaaaaaaarr

I got the teeth of a phython, a hunter