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Dinosaurs spread out and covered the earth, and the large continent of Africa has many dinosaur species. Some finds have helped to validate the phenomenon of plate tectonics, formerly known as “continental drift”. Southern Africa once formed the heart of the dispersed Gondwanaland. Fossils from Tanzania have relatives from the American Morrison Formation, including a Brachiosaurus look-alike which was named Giraffatitan.

North Africa boasts dino fossils from Morocco. And especially Egypt, where the T. Rex-sized Spinosaurus may have lived an amphibian life as a swimming or wading fish eater. Also from Egypt was Carcharodontosaurus, so named because it had teeth resembling Carcharodon, the great white shark. It was published in 1931, at an estimated 40 feet and 12 tons.

The sharp-toothed Jurassic hunter Afrovenator came from the fringe of the Sahara desert in the country of Niger. It was announced in 1994. In South Africa's Free State province, Aardonyx turned up in 2009, as a missing link between two-footed dinosaurs and those that went on all fours, which allowed their line to evolve into the largest creatures on earth. Also from South Africa, the Jurassic theropod Massospondylus has turned up in many locations, since it first came to light in 1854, as one of the first dinosaurs to be studied rigorously.


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