The Discovery

A forgotten fossil spent over a century tucked away in the vast collections of the Natural History Museum in London. In 2020, palaeontologist Paul Barrett spotted a small piece of bone and recognized it as part of a dinosaur's braincase. Records showed that the fossil had originally been gathered from a beach near Sudmoor Point on the Isle of Wight, an island off the southern coast of England. To learn more about the specimen, Barrett enlisted PhD student Cassius Morrison to analyze it in detail.

What Scientists Found

Detailed analysis revealed that the roughly 120-million-year-old fossil belonged to a newly identified species of meat-eating theropod named Invictibellatrix amberina. This animal is part of the Megaraptora group, a family of carnivores recognized for their slender skulls, lightly built skeletons, and large hand claws. Key details about this newly identified species include:

  • It is currently the smallest known megaraptoran, measuring roughly 5 metres from head to tail and weighing about as much as a large tiger.
  • Scientists examined the inside of the braincase using CT scanning technology and utilized computer algorithms to place the species on the dinosaur family tree.
  • It represents an early evolutionary stage of megaraptorans, offering a look at what these predators were like before relatives in the group grew to gigantic sizes.
  • It likely preyed on small dinosaurs, mammals, lizards, and crocodiles, coexisting alongside other distinct carnivores such as Neovenator, Ceratosuchops, and Eotyrannus.

Why It Matters

As the first megaraptoran ever discovered in Europe, Invictibellatrix offers strong evidence regarding how these ancient predators spread across the planet. Previously, megaraptoran fossils were only known from locations in Asia, South America, and Australia. Because these large animals could not swim across Cretaceous oceans, finding a species in Europe indicates that the family likely migrated from Asia through Europe and Africa before reaching southern landmasses. This discovery also suggests that more megaraptoran fossils may remain undiscovered in Africa and Antarctica.

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Source: dinosaur fossil discovery - BingNews · Published October 21, 2026 · Photo by Rusty Watson on Unsplash