"The Land Before Time" may be the next franchise to get a reboot, and this time they will have new characters following the news that paleontologists discovered two new species of dinosaurs.
On Wednesday, in a journal article for Scientific Reports, the announcement was made that two new types of dinosaurs had been discovered.
The ancient creatures were believed to have roamed the south of England 125 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, meaning they were on the earth at the same time as the famous Triceratops, Velociraptor, and Tyrannosaurus.
The new species have been specified in the spinosaurid group. They are described as having three toes, crocodile-type skulls to hunt in water and land, and span as large as 29 feet in length.
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Their fossils contained 50 bones and were dug up on the Isle of Wight beach after several years of excavating.
The first dinosaur is being called a Ceratosuchops inferodios. However, its nickname, the "horned crocodile-faced hell heron," is a bit more catchy. The name comes from its skeleton having low horns and bumps near its eyebrow region and its ties to its hunting style.
The second is called the Riparovenator Milnerae, translating to "Milner's riverbank hunter," to honor the late British paleontologist Angela Milner.
Brian Foster, a fossil collector, shared what the discovery means to him in a statement provided by the University of Southampton.
"This is the rarest and most exciting find I've made in over 30 years of fossil collecting," Foster said.
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Pieces of two dinosaur skulls were found by fossil collectors in England before a team of Dinosaur Isle Museum discovered tail bones on the beach. Fossil collector Jeremy Lockwood shared in the statement that the discovery was quite unusual.
"We realized after the two snouts were found that this would be something rare and unusual," Lockwood said. "Then it just got more and more amazing as several collectors found and donated other parts of this enormous jigsaw to the museum."
Now all the executives at Universal Studios have to do is get Chris Pratt on board for the next dino-themed movie, this time with tea and crumpets.
