{"id":802177,"date":"2026-10-14T09:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802177\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:34:08","slug":"isle-of-wight-fossil-identified-as-new-dinosaur-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802177\/","title":{"rendered":"Isle of Wight fossil identified as new dinosaur species"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Researchers believe Invictibellatrix would have been three to four metres long and just over a metre and a half in height &#8211; about as tall as a human.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It would likely have had feathers and its claws might have been about 10cm to 20cm long.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It would have eaten small dinosaurs, lizards and mammals \u2013 occupying a similar role in the food chain to the hyena today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Megaraptors are regarded as the most mysterious of the large, meat-eating dinosaurs, as few megaraptor fossils have been found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Until now no megaraptorans had been found in Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lead author Dr Cassius Morrison (UCL Earth Sciences) said: &#8220;It is a real mystery that this fossil was overlooked for so long, sitting in a drawer for nearly 100 years. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Lots of bones are found on the Isle of Wight \u2013 who knows what else is waiting to be discovered.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The researchers undertook a CT scan of the fossil, creating a 3D model of this part of the skull.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They compared the fossil with skulls and brain cases from tyrannosaurs, spinosaurs, raptors and other two-legged meat-eating dinosaurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers believe Invictibellatrix would have been three to four metres long and just over a metre and a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-802177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}