Tyrannosaur Tooth Found in Southwestern Japan

Fukui, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The city of Nagasaki and others announced Friday that a tooth from a large carnivorous dinosaur of the Tyrannosauridae family has been discovered in a stratum along the coast of the southwestern Japan city.

It was the third discovery of Tyrannosauridae dinosaur fossils in Japan, after findings in the same stratum and in the city of Amakusa in Kumamoto Prefecture, also in southwestern Japan.

The latest discovery was a tooth believed to have fallen out of the right side of the lower jaw.

Around 85 millimeters long, 33 millimeters wide and 18 millimeters thick, the tooth was unearthed in 2019 from the Mitsuse stratum on the Nagasaki Peninsula by a joint research project of the city of Nagasaki and the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum in the central Japan prefecture of Fukui.

Their analysis found that while the tooth was slightly smaller than the two teeth found from the same stratum in 2014, it had the characteristics of a tooth from a member of the Tyrannosauridae family. The teeth discovered in 2014 are believed to have belonged to a 10-meter-long dinosaur.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]