Carcharodontosaurus is a large carnivorous theropod that lived in North Africa during the Late Cretaceous. Carcharodontosaurus consists of its type species in Prehistoric Kingdom, C. saharicus.
It was added to the game in Update 9.
In-Game[]
Description[]
Carcharodontosaurus is similar to its fellow carcharodontosaurid Acrocanthosaurus in its general appearance, with a tall back, a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, and an aesthetic looking head. However, Carcharodontosaurus is much larger than its North American kin, being nearly the size of an adult Tyrannosaurus rex. It doesn't just share a size class with T. rex either, it happens to also bear arms that are almost just as diminutive as the Tyrant Lizard King's.
Management[]
To be announced.
In-Game Trivia[]
Nigel Marven
Dun dun… Dun dun… Watch out, here comes the shark lizard, Carcharodontosaurus!
Nigel Marven
Carcharodontosaurus gets its name from its teeth, which are long, triangular, and serrated, much like the teeth of Great White Sharks.
Nigel Marven
Despite the name, this is a terrestrial animal, not an aquatic one! You can think of it as a land shark: Well-suited to catching large prey with an incredibly muscular body and wicked serrated teeth.
Nigel Marven
There must have been something in the water back in Cretaceous North Africa, because Carcharodontosaurus wasn't the only carnivore around that reached gigantic proportions. Many of the geological formations that preserve its fossils also yield the remains of Spinosaurus!
Paleontology[]
Carcharodontosaurus saharicus was first named in 1925 by Charles Depéret & Justin Savornin as a species of Megalosaurus, a fate that befell many theropods at the time. The named specimens consisted of two teeth, which have since been lost. The genus name Carcharodontosaurus was later coined by Ernst Stromer in 1931, using some skeletal material found during a 1914 expedition in Egypt which he used to justify erecting a new genus outside of Megalosaurus for this animal. Later in April 1944 during the Second World War the German museum that was housing Carcharodontosaurus and many other of Stromer's fossil finds was destroyed in an allied bombing raid, taking Carcharodontosaurus, Spinosaurus and a multitude of other unique fossils with it.
Decades later in 1995 new material was found by Paul Sereno in the Moroccan Kem Kem Beds and assigned to C. saharicus, consisting of a partial skull. It was then described in in 1996 and later designated as the Neotype of C. saharicus, meaning that the material is now the primary holder of the name Carcharodontosaurus saharicus and any referred material to the animal must be compared to it, and not the lost specimens.
Carcharodontosaurus is the animal that gives the group Carcharodontosauridae its name, uniting animals such as Giganotosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus, Mapusaurus, Concavenator, Meraxes and more into a single group of allosauroid shark-toothed predators.
A second species of Carcharodontosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus iguidensis, was named in 2007 by Steve Brusatte and Paul Sereno.
Paleoecology[]
Carcharodontosaurus saharicus was a massive predator well equipped to tear into flesh using its namesake "Shark Teeth". Unlike the North American Tyrannosaurus, which was equipped with massive railroad-spikelike teeth in order to tackle more heavily armored prey, Carcharodontosaurus's teeth were much like the thin serrated knife-like teeth seen in animals like its relative Acrocanthosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Velociraptor, Komodo Dragons and many other predators. These teeth would have allowed them to shear through soft tissues with relative ease, but would not be as efficient at processing bone. This, however, does not seem to have stopped them from biting bone, as the Neotype Carcharodontosaurus skull seems to bear bite marks on its face likely left from facebiting bouts with other members of its species, a behavior that is widespread in theropods.
While it is often stated that Carcharodontosaurus had no binocular vision, this is not the case, it merely just has less extreme binocular vision than T. rex. Carcharodontosaurus likely put that vision to good use when locating, hunting and attacking large dinosaurian prey such as the sauropods it shared its habitat with.
The environment Carcharodontosaurus lived in in North Africa was subject to seasonal monsoon rains and riddled with waterways and tidal flats, with the water bodies teaming with massive fish and their predators like Spinosaurus, crocodylomorphs and pterosaurs. Carcharodontosaurus, however, seems to have vastly preferred turf to surf, likely dining on any large herbivorous dinosaurs it could capture. This is evidenced by the distribution and isotopes of Carcharodontosaurus teeth, which are more often found in terrestrial deposits than in aquatic deposits and posses isotopic evidence congruent with other terrestrial predators.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Carcharodontosaurus was revealed in the October 2023 Devlog, along with Panthera (Cave Lion); both species had been considered in the very early stages of development back in 2014, but were thought to have been scrapped.
- While the Carcharodontosaurus had concept art, an in-engine render and audio, the Cave Lion only had audio made at that time.
- Carcharodontosaurus was the second member of Carcharodontosauridae to be added to Prehistoric Kingdom, with the first being Acrocanthosaurus.
- Carcharodontosaurus's sounds and "Ablaze" skin are partially inspired by the "vibes" of the Carcharodontosaurus featured in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, similar to the Dilophosaurus skin "Clouded" being inspired by Jurassic Park designs and named after Isla Nublar.
- Carcharodontosaurus was one of the first African animals added to Prehistoric Kingdom alongside Ouranosaurus and Spinosaurus in Update 9.
- In one of Nigel's comments on the animal Nigel references the Jaws theme because Carcharodontosaurus is the "Shark-Toothed Lizard".
| |||||||||||