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About Afrovenator:
Afrovenator is significant for two reasons: first, it's one of the few nearly complete theropod skeletons to be unearthed in northern Africa, and second, it appears to have been closely related to the western European Megalosaurus--yet more evidence for the distribution of continents in the early Cretaceous period.
However, the exact place occupied by Afrovenator in the theropod family tree has been a matter of some controversy. At various times, paleontologists have linked this dinosaur to putative descendants as diverse as Eustreptospondylus, Dubreuillosaurus, Allosaurus and even the massive Spinosaurus.
As one of his earliest discoveries, Afrovenator has become something of a calling card for the noted paleontologist Paul Sereno, who unearthed this dinosaur's fossil in the African country of Niger in the early 1990's and carted its bones back to his home base at the University of Chicago, where it's currently stored.
