Duriavenator is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now England about 168 million years ago. Fossil jaw bones of a dinosaur (illustration pictured) collected near Sherborne, Dorset, in 1882 were considered by Richard Owen to belong to Megalosaurus bucklandii. It was recognised as a different species by 1964, moved to M. hesperis in 1974, and moved again to its own genus, Duriavenator 'Dorset hunter', in 2008. It was about 5 to 7 m (16 to 23 ft) long and weighed about 1 tonne (2,000 lb). The upper jaw's main bone is distinctive; its upper surface has a deep groove with numerous air-filled openings, and its lower has smaller foramina that connected with the upper jaw's front bone. It had about 4 teeth in the premaxilla, 14 to 16 in the rest of the upper jaw, and 14 to 15 in the lower jaw. The long lower front teeth may have been used for plucking and grasping food. Phylogenetic analyses have shown it to be among the oldest tetanuran theropods, and to belong in the family Megalosauridae.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duriavenator

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1847:

Mexican–American War: The United States Army used artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican army at the Battle of Buena Vista near Saltillo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Buena_Vista

1941:

Plutonium was first chemically identified by chemist Glenn T. Seaborg and his team at the University of California, Berkeley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium

1945:

American photographer Joe Rosenthal took the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima during the Battle of Iwo Jima, an image that was later reproduced on the Marine Corps War Memorial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima

2017:

Syrian civil war: Allied troops led by the Turkish Armed Forces captured the city of al-Bab from the Islamic State. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Bab

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

navel-gazing: 1. Contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation. 2. (derogatory) Excessive focus on oneself; self-indulgent introspection. 3. (sometimes derogatory) (Disproportionate) concentration on a single issue. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/navel-gazing

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.   --W. E. B. Du Bois https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois