Torvosaurus

Torvosaurus was one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs of the Jurassic Period.

It was closely related to Megalosaurus – the first officially named dinosaur.

Torvosaurus remains have been found in multiple countries around the world – in both North America and Europe and possibly Africa and South America too.

There are currently two named species of Torvosaurus. One of these, Torvosaurus gurneyi, is named after James Gurney, the creator of the Dinotopia book series.

Torvosaurus fossils from Germany may represent a third species, but this hasn’t yet been given a name.

The name Torvosaurus was coined in 1979 when fossil hunters found bones in Colorado, USA.

In the following years, experts realised that some earlier bone discoveries from other places also belonged to Torvosaurus.

It turned out the first ever Torvosaurus fossils had been found way back in 1899. But they’d sat unnamed and forgotten in a museum collection until somebody rediscovered them in 2010.

In recent years, Torvosaurus bones have also been unearthed in Portugal and Germany.

There are also fossils from Tanzania, Uruguay, Spain and England that some scientists think are Torvosaurus.

The most complete Torvosaurus skeleton ever found came from Colorado in 2012. Researchers nicknamed this individual Elvis.

But even though Elvis is the best Torvosaurus specimen found so far, it still has lots of pieces missing. In fact, we only have 55% of the skeleton.

We know Torvosaurus lived alongside some other big carnivores like Allosaurus, Saurophaganax and Ceratosaurus.

Scientists think Torvosaurus may have had a different hunting style to these dinosaurs, although they all preyed on plant-eating dinosaurs.

Allosaurus had long legs and might have preferred hunting on open plains, where it could run quickly without anything getting in the way. The lower body of Torvosaurus was more suited to slowly stalking prey across rivers and forests.

Perhaps Torvosaurus or Ceratosaurus even tucked into Allosaurus occasionally. An Allosaurus hip bone was found with tooth marks that might be from Torvosaurus, although it’s hard to be sure.

While Torvosaurus and Tyrannosaurus were both large, meat-eating dinosaurs and looked quite similar, they weren’t closely related.

Torvosaurus belonged to the megalosaur dinosaur group and lived during the Jurassic Period. In contrast, Tyrannosaurus lived tens of millions of years later during the Cretaceous Period and was part of the coelurosaur group.