Paleontologists Claim to Have Discovered Terrifying New Dinosaur Species in Pre-WWII Photographs

Paleontologists might have discovered a new dinosaur species—even though its fossil doesn’t exist anymore.

Researchers in Munich, Germany, claim to have identified a new species of large predatory dinosaur from modern day Egypt in a surprising way. As detailed in a January 14 study published in the journal PLOS one, the researchers studied the 95-million-year-old reptile in pre-World War II archival photographs.

“Presumably, the dinosaur fauna of North Africa was much more diverse than we previously thought. This work shows that it can be worthwhile for paleontologists to dig not only in the ground, but also in old archives,” Oliver Rauhut from the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology, who participated in the study, explained in the institution’s statement.

In 1914, fossil collector Richard Markgraf excavated the original partial skeleton in Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis. He sent the remains to paleontologist Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach in Munich, where they were stored in the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in the Old Academy. Stromer designated the dinosaur as a member of the genus Carcharodontosaurus, a group of massive meat-eating dinosaurs that lived in North Africa around 99 million to 94 million years ago.

Thirty years later, an Allied air raid on Munich bombed the Old Academy, destroying parts of the collection, including the so-called Carcharodontosaurus. The only remnants were illustrations of the bones, a few photos, and Stromer’s notes. That is, until paleontologist Maximilian Kellermann, a master’s student at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, discovered more archival photos of the 1914 fossil. The photographs depicted parts of the fossil’s skull, spine, and hind legs, and revealed something unexpected.

“What we saw in the historical images surprised us all. The Egyptian dinosaur fossil depicted there differs significantly from more recent Carcharodontosaurus finds in Morocco. Stromer’s original classification was thus incorrect,” said Kellermann, who led the study. “We identified a completely different, previously unknown predatory dinosaur species here and named it Tameryraptor markgrafi.”

“Ta-mery” is an ancient Egyptian name for Egypt meaning “beloved land,” according to the study, and raptor means “thief” in Latin, hence Tameryraptor means “thief from the beloved land.” “Markgrafi,” on the other hand, pays homage to the fossil collector.

Along with Elena Cuesta, also from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Rauhut and Kellermann determined from the photographs that T. markgrafi would have been around 33 feet long (10 m), making it one of the largest known carnivores to have walked the Earth, and had a noteworthy nasal horn as well as symmetrical teeth. They also determined that the giant reptile was related to the North African Carcharodontosaurs, the group of dinosaurs it was originally categorized as, as well as South American Carcharodontosaurs and Metriacanthosaurs—a group of predatory dinosaurs from Asia.

“However, a more comprehensive assessment of the Cretaceous predatory dinosaur fauna from the Bahariya Oasis would require the recovery of more fossils from the site,” Rauhut added.

However, it’s worth questioning how accurately one can define a new species from sketches and old black-and-white images. In the study, the researchers themselves admit that the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature usually recommends against the “designation of material that the author only knows from descriptions and illustrations, but has not studied first hand.” The team wouldn’t even have been able to confirm the fossil’s date. However, “we think that this is such an exceptional case where a nomenclatorial act is justified,” they added, pointing to official exceptions within the recommendations.

Perhaps future excavations will one day find physical evidence of T. markgrafi. For now, this might be yet another happy example of old photographs leading scientists to a new discovery.