The pre-historic wonders of Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis continue to unravel as an Egyptian team of paleontologists, led by Hesham Sallam, have discovered the fossil of a new dinosaur, announced the American University in Cairo (AUC). The team, led by Sallam, an associate professor at AUC and founder of Mansoura University’s Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVP), unearthed a new species of theropods, three-toed, large carnivorous dinosaurs. “However, the vertebra described in the new paper belongs to an abelisaurid, a kind of bulldog-faced, short-armed theropod that had not been discovered in the oasis before and that is estimated to have been roughly six meters (20 feet) in body length,” explained Belal Salem, who led and published the study of the excavation along with fellow academics from MUVP and Ohio University. Abelisaurids, a family of the dinosaur species, are most recognized through the Carnotaurus species, and in mainstream media through the ‘Jurassic World’ films and David Attenborough’s ‘Prehistoric Planet’. Bahariya Oasis, located in the Western Desert of Egypt, is brim with prehistoric fossils, leading to a plethora of dinosaur discoveries – from Spinosaurus, Bahariasaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, to the new unnamed species. “About 98 million…
