Lusovenator

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Lusovenator is a carnivorous dinosaur from Portugal that lived during the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, about 154 to 145 million years ago. It is a theropod in the carcharodontosaurian group, a line of big predatory dinosaurs.

The name Lusovenator means “Portuguese hunter,” and the species is Lusovenator santosi. It comes from the Lourinhã Formation in Portugal, specifically the Praia de Amoreira–Porto-Novo Member and the Assenta Member. The fossils were found in the 1980s by José Joaquim dos Santos, who later donated his collection to a natural history society.

The main fossil, the holotype SHN.036, is a partial skeleton that includes parts of the neck and backbones, ribs, parts of the pelvis, and leg bones. A second specimen, SHN.019, includes a sequence of tail vertebrae and an almost complete right foot. These finds helped scientists understand its place among predatory dinosaurs.

In 2017 one study placed the holotype in Allosauroidea, but later work reclassified Lusovenator as a carcharodontosaurian. The 2020 description of Lusovenator santosi placed it in Carcharodontosauria, outside the specific families within that group at the time. More recent analyses (as of 2024) have varied, with some studies supporting placement in Carcharodontosauridae, grouping Lusovenator with dinosaurs like Sauroniops and Concavenator.

Overall, Lusovenator shows how Portugal’s fossils contribute to understanding the big meat-eating dinosaurs that roamed Europe in the Late Jurassic and early Cretaceous.