Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum and Nagasaki city on Tuesday said they have discovered fossilized teeth belonging to a large-size Tyrannosauridae dinosaur, believed to be the first in Japan.

Fossils of carnivorous dinosaurs had been unearthed in some locations in the country, but all are remains of smaller types, which are about five meters tall. The teeth found in Nagasaki, from a layer of earth in western part of the city approximately 81 million years old, belonged to a Tyrannosauridae that was at least 10 meters in height, the museum’s chief researcher, Kazunori Miyata, told Japan Real Time.

One of the teeth is 8.2 centimeters long, 3.8 centimeters wide and 2.7 centimeters thick, according to the museum. It was found in May 2014. “It’s difficult to tell the exact size of the dinosaur just from its teeth, but this one seems to have been at least 10 meters tall,” Mr. Miyata said. Sizes of Tyrannosauridae dinosaurs, which have been found in North America and Asia, have varied from about five meters to 12 meters, he said. The new findings are evidence that there were a variety of carnivorous dinosaurs, including the Tyrannosauridae, that lived near what is Nagasaki city today during the late Cretaceous Period, the museum said. The fossilized teeth will go on display in Nagasaki city beginning on Friday.

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