A dinosaur fossil that remained largely unnoticed in a museum collection for nearly a century has been identified as a previously unknown meat-eating species with large curved claws.
The dinosaur, named Invictibellatrix amberina , lived in what is now Britain around 120 million years ago and was roughly the size of a large tiger.
Researchers led by University College London (UCL) studied the fossil, which was originally found on the Isle of Wight. Their findings were published in Royal Society Open Science .
The researchers identified Invictibellatrix as the first known European member of the megaraptorans, a poorly understood group of two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs related to tyrannosaurs.
Unlike Tyrannosaurus rex , which relied heavily on its powerful jaws, megaraptorans had narrower heads, muscular arms, and large curved claws that they likely used to capture prey.