Discovered a beast with a crocodile-like head and up to 8 meters long

The remains of a 120-million-year-old monster belonging to the group of extremely ferocious "spiky bone dragons" have just been unearthed in Spain .

According to research recently published in the scientific journal Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society , although only a few leg bones of the beast were discovered, scientists relied on data from related species to reconstruct them. shows its terrible appearance.

The new species was named Riojavenatrix lacustris by a team of authors led by paleontologist Erik Isasmendi from Basque University (Spain) .

The new beast discovered in Spain is a giant spiny bone dragon - (Graphic photo: Andrey Atuchin).

It roamed what is now Spain about 120 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period of the Cretaceous period.

It belongs to a family of large theropod dinosaurs called Spinosauridae, or "spined-boned dinosaurs" , with the largest species in the family being equal to or larger than the T-rex'.

The spiny dragons are characterized by short or long sharp spines along the spine, an elongated head like a crocodile's, a terrible cone-shaped jaw, and clawed and relatively strong forelimbs.

They are carnivorous dinosaurs, most of which choose large fish as their main prey.

The newly discovered species is also a large species in the family, with an estimated length when alive of 7-8 m, weighing 1.5 tons.

According to Sci-News, before Riojavenatrix lacustris, there were 5 other species of spiny dragons unearthed in the Iberian Peninsula, mainly in present-day Spain and Portugal.

That shows that this region was once dominated by this group of ferocious dinosaurs.

However, why so many of these apex predators can coexist at the same time with only a slight time difference in this area is still a mystery.