Southern Africa's New Mega-Carnivore: A Whole Lotta Dinosaur

Known so far only from its giant footprints, a new Southern African mega-carnivore is believed to be the region's largest dinosaur predator ever. (Credit Fabian Knoll and Lara Sciscio) My, what big feet you have...200-million-year-old dinosaur footprints found in the mountainous Southern African country of Lesotho are unique within the Southern Hemisphere and the largest of their kind ever discovered on the continent. But size isn't the only thing that matters about the mega-carnivore that made them. The footprints, each measuring about 22 inches in length, were discovered on a layer of rippled, fine-grained sandstone dated to about 200 million years ago. The ripples and other features preserved in the rock suggest it was once part of a seasonal watering hole or edge of a river channel. Other tracks from smaller theropods — bipedal, typically carnivorous dinosaurs — were found around the mega-carnivore's trackway. Based on what we know about ...