Lourinha: The Portuguese town where dinosaurs once roamed The recent identification in Portugal of what scientists believe to be the largest predator ever to roam the European landmass is just the latest boost for a small town that has become known as land of the dinosaurs. It is also the latest chapter in the fairytale story of a local boy who made his first big discovery at the age of nine - of a huge tooth from this same dinosaur - and who today leads the research project whose findings have been making headlines worldwide. In a laboratory piled high with fossils, Octavio Mateus holds up a tooth the size of a dagger from the newly identified species - just like the one he found as an excited child. With this blade-like tooth you can clearly see the serration - this was a fierce predator, he explains. Compare it with Tyrannosaurus rex, which has teeth like bananas - they are very round in cross-section, adapted to crush through bone - while these were to cut through flesh. This shows different feeding strategies in the evolution of these animals, although they are superficially similar. Now 38, Octavio is a professor at Lisbons Universidade Nova (New University), where he teaches the countrys first-ever degree in palaeontology. But he still spends plenty of time here at the museum in Lourinha, 50km (30 miles) north of the capital, that his parents helped found 30 years ago to house rich local ethnographical and archaeological finds. bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26578083
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 08:54:35 +0000
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