Overview
- The newly named Wadisuchus kassabi comes from the middle Campanian Quseir Formation in Egypt and dates to about 80 million years ago.
- Fieldwork near the Kharga and Baris oases yielded two partial skulls plus snout material from four individuals at different growth stages.
- The 3.5–4 m long, long-snouted predator shows four front snout teeth, dorsally positioned nostrils, and a deep snout notch consistent with coastal feeding adaptations.
- Phylogenetic results recover the species as an early-diverging dyrosaurid, supporting a North African origin with diversification beginning as early as the Coniacian–Santonian.
- The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, extends the clade’s record into the Campanian and prompts calls to protect Western Desert fossil sites.