A new dinosaur species discovered in Portugal dominated the food chain 150 million years ago - the Tyrannosaurus Rex of its time.
The new species is the largest land predator discovered in Europe and one of the largest of the Jurassic era, said authors Christophe Hendrickx and Octavio Mateus of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Museu da Lourinha.
The Torvosaurus gurneyi, like T Rex, was a bipedal carnivore with blade-like teeth more than 10 centimetres long, they said in a report published on Wednesday in the US journal PLOS ONE.
"This was clearly a fierce predator," Mateus said. "Wherever he arrived, he was the owner and master. No one could rival Torvosaurus during the late Jurassic. This is the equivalent of T rex but 80 million years before."
The scientists estimate Torvosaurus gurneyi grew up to 10 metres long and weighed about four or five tonnes. Its skull was nearly 115 centimetres long, which is smaller than the T Rex, but not by much.
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The fossils found in Portugal closely resemble those of a North American dinosaur, the Torvosaurus tanneri, and indeed at first the scientists thought the specimens must be from the same species.
But after closer analysis, the researchers determined the species must have evolved separately from the two sides of the proto-Atlantic Ocean during a few million years.
Mateus said it was hard to know how different the two species would have looked when they were living. There might have been differences in colouring or behaviour that would have easily distinguished them.
From the fossil record, the differences are more subtle.
The North American species has 11 or more teeth on its upper jaw, compared with fewer than 11 for the Portuguese dinosaur, the researchers said. And the mouth bones are shaped and structured differently.
