Eocarcharia

Eocarcharia is an extinct genus of theropod dinosaurs found in what is now the western Ténéré Desert of Niger. It is known from several skull bones collected in 2000 by an expedition to the Early Cretaceous Elrhaz Formation led by American paleontologist Paul Sereno. The fossil material was then described in 2008 by Sereno and Steve Brusatte. The genus contains a single species, Eocarcharia dinops. While Sereno and Brusatte identified all of the remains as belonging to a new carcharodontosaurid, later studies suggested that the species is chimaeric, comprising bones of at least two unrelated taxa. Some of the Eocarcharia material, including the holotype (name-bearing) specimen, likely belongs to a baryonychine spinosaurid. This would render Eocarcharia a member of this group, closely related to the coeval Suchomimus. Meanwhile, the definitively carcharodontosaurid bones, a maxilla and teeth, belong to a distinct unnamed taxon.