Eocarcharia (meaning "dawn shark") is a genus of allosauroid theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Elrhaz Formation that lived in the Sahara 112 million years ago, in what today is the country of Niger.
Eocarcharia's brow is swollen into a massive band of bone, giving it a menacing glare[2] (leading to the specific name dinops or "fierce-eyed").
[1] The type specimen MNN GAD2 consists of a maxilla, frontals and a prefrontal, teeth, as well as parietal and fragmentary left and right orbitosphenoids.
[1] In their 2022 description of the giant carcharodontosaurid Meraxes, Canale et al. recovered Eocarcharia as an early member of the clade, in a polytomy with Concavenator, Lajasvenator and Lusovenator.
His results are displayed in the cladogram below:[6] Sauroniops Veterupristisaurus Lusovenator Concavenator Carcharodontosaurus iguidensis (holotype maxilla) Eocarcharia (referred maxilla) Carcharodontosaurus iguidensis (referred cranial material) Lajasvenator Labocania Carcharodontosaurus saharicus (described by Stromer in 1931) Tyrannotitan In the description of the carcharodontosaurid Tameryraptor, Cuesta and Rauhut (2025) recovered Eocarcharia in much more basal positions, either as the sister taxon of Carcharodontosauriformes or as a basal member of Metriacanthosauridae.