Asiamericana
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Asiamericana Fossil range: Cretaceous |
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Asiamericana (AY-zha-MER-i-KAHN-a - (Greek: Asia meaning "Asia" and Latin American meaning "America") was a genus of theropod dinosaur which was named to recognize the occurrence of similar fossil teeth in Central Asia and North America. These regions once formed a connected land mass, during the Cretaceous period and were referred to as Asiamerica. Asiamericana has been tentatively classified with the Spinosauridae.
The teeth were discovered by L. A. Nessov in 1995. The findings were based on three teeth found in the central Kyzylkum desert, Uzbekistan, comparable to other teeth found in Kazakhstan and North America, which have been illustrated but not formally described. The type species is A. asiatica.
[edit] Classification issues
Nessov himself has cautioned that these unusual teeth may belong to saurodont fish rather than to dinosaurs.