There are a few places in the world that conjure palaeontologists a glow in the eye. The Dinosaur Quarry in Utah, for example, Como-Bluff in Wyoming, the quarries in the Middle Franconian Solnhofen or the banks of the Danshui River in the Chinese Hubei Province.
That in the center of Thailand sensational finds can be made, knew so far only a few experts.
Now researchers around Duangsuda Chokchaloemwong from the Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University in Thailand report in the journal "PLoS One" what they uncovered from the so-called Khok-Kruat Formation: Remains of a previously unknown, up to eight-meter-large predatory dinosaur. Previously, they had found two previously unknown species of herbivores in the same place: Ratchasimasaurus and Sirindhorna.
Many millions of years before the Tyrannosaurus rex
The name of the newly discovered giant carnivore is Siamraptor suwati. The genus is reminiscent of the old name of Thailand, Siam. And because the animals were robbers, Latin: Raptor. The species name in turn honors Suwat Liptapanlop, a sponsor of local research.
The Thai paleontologists have so far not been able to find a complete skeleton, but bone fragments, which they assign to four different individuals. According to the findings of the team, the Siamraptor was an early relative of Carcharodontosauridae.
These toothpick or sharktooth lizards are a group of carnivorous dinosaurs that lived in the Cretaceous world 130 to 89 million years ago on all continents, many millions of years before known predators such as the Tyrannosaurus rex.
From Southeast Asia, however, there have been no finds so far - until now.
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Largest known representative of the Carcharodontosauridae is the Gigantosaurus, which could become up to 13 meters long. The newly discovered predator from Thailand brought it to at least eight meters in length. In the bones of the animals, the researchers found comparatively large, air-filled cavities. From their perspective, these helped the dinosaurs to a particularly light skeleton - and thus to a better locomotion.
Siamraptor was not only deadly, he was also fast.