One of the last dinosaurs that lived in Africa before they went extinct 66 million years ago has been found in a phosphate mine in northern Morocco.

The study led by the researchers from Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath examined the fossils and suggest that a distinct dinosaur evolved in Africa during the Cretaceous period.

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In 2016, Dr. Nick Longrich from University of Bath analyzed the rare fragment of the jaw bone found in the mines at Sidi Chennane in the Oulad Abdoun Basin, Morocco. Dr. Longrich along with colleagues from Spain, Morocco, and France classified the new species to belong to abelisaur.

Abelisaurs were known to be two-legged predators with a shorter, blunter nose, smaller arms, and were slightly similar to T. rex and other tyrannosaurs. Tyrannosaurs dominated in Asia and North America, while the abelisaurs were the major predators at the end of the Cretaceous period in South America, Africa, Europe, and India.

The new species was named "Chenanisaurus barbaricus," is the smaller African counterpart of the North American T. rex. It is believed that the creature was one of the last dinosaurs on Earth before an asteroid hit the planet 66 million years ago.

Only a few dinosaurs that lived in Africa following the Cretaceous period are known. Sea levels were high during this period, that's why most of the fossils are found in marine rocks. Among these are the phosphate sediments of Morocco, laid down 66 million years ago. 

Dr. Longrich says that their finding is significant because the fossils were recovered in marine rocks, and believes that the creature was possibly hunting for lion or whales. Additionally, it is the first dinosaur fossils found in Morocco and one of the last dinosaurs in Africa before the mass extinction.