Scientists have found the new top of Europe's prehistoric food chain.

The dinosaur Torvosaurus gurneyi , a distant cousin of the widely-recognized Tyrannosaurus Rex , was a apparently ruled the carnivores of the Iberian Peninsula about 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic period, according to a new study published in the scientific journal PLOS One .

Paleontologists Christophe Hendrickx and Octávio Mateus of the New University of Lisbon and the Museum of Lourinhã said in a release that the newly-discovered creature grew to an estimated 33 feet in length and weighed approximately five tons. Its four-foot long skull sported powerful jaws with blade-shaped teeth.

Then, interestingly, there are indications the body of the Torvosaurus gurneyi was covered with an early kind of feather.

"It was indeed better not to cross the way of this large, carnivorous dinosaur," Hendrickx said . "Torvosaurus gurneyi was obviously a super predator feeding on large prey like herbivorous dinosaurs."

The first part of the dino's name is a combination between the Latin "torvus," which means wild, and Greek "saurus," which means lizard. The "gurneyi" is a tip of the scientific hat to James Gurney, the American artist and author of the popular "Dinotopia" book series that depict a fanciful, contemporary world shared by both humans and dinosaurs.

Hendrickx said he has long admired the creation of "this utopian world where dinosaurs and humans live together" and that Gurney is "an excellent 'paleoartist' and teacher," Hendrickx said

The remains of the new species were first spotted in rocky cliffs near Lisbon by an amateur fossil hunter in 2003, Hendrickx indicated in a report by Reuters. He added fossilized embryos, suspected to be the same species, were as well found in Portugal last year.

"This is not the largest predatory dinosaur we know," Hendrickx said in the release, noting the Tyrannosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Giganotosaurus from the Cretaceous period, which preceded the Jurassic years, "were bigger animals."