Open Paleo

Tameryraptor

Kellermann et al., 2025

From Egyptian Tamery, meaning "the beloved land" (an ancient Egyptian name for Egypt), combined with Latin raptor, "thief" — means "thief from the beloved land"

100.5–93.9 million years ago Cenomanian, Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous stages

Tameryraptor is an extinct genus of large carcharodontosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian age) in what is now Egypt. It is known from a partial skeleton collected in rock layers from the Bahariya Formation by crews of German paleontologist Ernst Stromer in 1914, comprising an incomplete skull, vertebrae, and several other postcranial elements. Stromer described the specimen in 1931, referring it to the previously named Megalosaurus saharicus on the basis of its tooth anatomy, and placing it in a new genus, Carcharodontosaurus. In 1944, it was destroyed in the Bombing of Munich during the Second World War. The specimen remained assigned to Carcharodontosaurus saharicus until a review of photographs of the fossil material in 2025 allowed researchers around German paleontologist Maximilian Kellermann to recognize the material as belonging to a distinct taxon known from a single species, Tameryraptor markgrafi.

Under dispute

Tameryraptor markgrafi, erected for Stromer's destroyed Bahariya carcharodontosaurid, is recovered as a derived carcharodontosaurid outside Carcharodontosaurinae (Kellermann and colleagues, 2025) or as the sister taxon of Carcharodontosaurus saharicus (Cau and Paterna, 2025). It is placed at Carcharodontosauridae incertae sedis.

Diagnosis

  1. Small nasal horn on medial rim of nasals
  2. Frontals vaulted dorsally
  3. Internasal suture inclined ventromedially
  4. Anterior caudal vertebrae with well-developed pneumaticity and foramina posterior to prezygapophyses
  5. Femur with spike-like accessory trochanter
  6. Maxilla with well-developed antorbital ridge

Species

Tameryraptor markgrafi Kellermann et al., 2025

Type species

Named for Richard Markgraf, the Austro-Hungarian paleontologist who discovered the fossil remains in Egypt in 1914.

Holotype
SNSB-BSPG 1922 X 46 , Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie (destroyed)
Material
Partial skeleton with left and right maxilla, nasals, braincase parts, three cervical vertebrae, caudal vertebra, rib, left ischium, pubis (both sides), femora, and left fibula.
Horizon
Bahariya Formation, Cenomanian, Late Cretaceous , 100.5–93.9 million years ago
Locality
two kilometers from Ain Gedid on the western foot of the Gebel Harra, Giza, Egypt

References

  1. Kellermann, M.; Cuesta, E.; Rauhut, O. W. M. (2025). Re-evaluation of the Bahariya Formation carcharodontosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) and its implications for allosauroid phylogeny. PLOS ONE 20(1): e0311096. Public Library of Science (PLoS). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0311096 kellermann2025a
  2. Cau, A.; Paterna, A. (2025). Beyond the Stromer's Riddle: the impact of lumping and splitting hypotheses on the systematics of the giant predatory dinosaurs from northern Africa. Italian Journal of Geosciences 144(2): 162-185. doi:10.3301/IJG.2025.10

    Recovered Tameryraptor as the sister taxon of Carcharodontosaurus saharicus.

    cau2025a