A new species of large carnivorous dinosaur found in what is now Egypt has been identified from fossils which no longer exist.

The original fossil was destroyed 80 years ago during World War II. Palaeontologists discovered the new species by looking at photographs of the skeleton taken before 1944.

Tameryraptor markgrafi lived 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous period (145–66 million years ago).

At the time, North Africa probably wasn’t the safest place to be. Several large predatory dinosaurs roamed the region. This included the 2 of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs – Spinosaurus aegyptiacus(15m, 8 tonnes) and Carcharodontosaurus saharicus (13m, 6 tonnes).

There was also the 11m-long Bahariasaurus and a smaller, bulldog-faced abelisaurid, fossils of which were discovered in 2022.

Oh, and did I mention the 10m-long crocodile Sarchosuchus found in Niger?

Tameryraptor’s fossil was unearthed in 1914 by a team led by German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach. Ithad previously been assigned to Carchorodontosaurus and was even thought to be a Megalosaurus – one of the very first dinosaurs to be scientifically named.

But the new research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests that these identifications were incorrect.

On July 21, 1944, allied air raids hit the Old Academy building in Munich, Germany where the bones were housed. Along with the enigmatic dinosaur, the best bones of Spinosaurus were destroyed.

All that remains are notes, sketches and a few photos of the original skeletons.

“What we saw in the historical images surprised us all,” says LMU München master’s student Maximilian Kellermann, first author of the new study.

“The Egyptian dinosaur fossil depicted there differs significantly from more recent Carcharodontosaurus finds in Morocco. Stromer’s original classification was thus incorrect. We identified a completely different, previously unknown predatory dinosaur species here.”

Tameryraptor becomes the fifth large predatory dinosaur found at Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis.

It would have been about 10 metres long and had a prominent horn on the tip of its snout.

Analysis suggests the dinosaur was closely related to the North African and South American Carcharodontosaurs and a group of predatory dinosaurs from Asia called Metriacanthosaurs.

“Presumably, the dinosaur fauna of North Africa was much more diverse than we previously thought. This work shows that it can be worthwhile for paleontologists to dig not only in the ground, but also in old archives,” says Oliver Rauhut from the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology.

“However, a more comprehensive assessment of the Cretaceous predatory dinosaur fauna from the Bahariya Oasis would require the recovery of more fossils from the site.”