Scientists in Egypt have unearthed fossils of a long-necked, four-legged dinosaur that lived roughly 80 million years ago.
The discovery sheds light on a mysterious time period in the history of dinosaurs in Africa.
Researchers said the plant-eating Cretaceous Period dinosaur, named Mansourasaurus shahinae, was nearly 10 metres long and weighed 5000 kg.
It was a member of a group called titanosaurs that included Earth's largest-ever land animals.
Like many titanosaurs, Mansourasaurus boasted bony plates called osteoderms embedded in its skin.
Mansourasaurus, which lived near the shore of the ancient ocean that preceded the Mediterranean Sea, is one of the very few dinosaurs known from the last 15 million years of the Mesozoic Era, or age of dinosaurs, on mainland Africa.
Madagascar had a separate geologic history.
The remains, found at the Dakhla Oasis in central Egypt, are the most complete of any mainland African land vertebrate during an even larger time span.
Paleontologist Hesham Sallam of Egypt's Mansoura University, who led the study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, said the creature existed roughly 30 million years before the dinosaur mass extinction 66 million years ago.
The scientists recovered parts of its skull, lower jaw, neck and back vertebrae, ribs, shoulder and forelimb, back foot and osteoderms.
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