Digger's find bites into Japanese record

HAKUSAN , Japan, July 22 (UPI) -- An amateur fossil-hunter's recent dig had some biting results: the discovery of what may be the largest dinosaur tooth found in Japan.

Experts said they think the tooth Satoshi Utsunomiya unearthed in Hakusan belonged to a therapod, a group of meat-eating dinosaurs that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported Tuesday.

The nearly perfectly preserved tooth measures 3.2 inches long and is 1.1 inches at its widest part.

One expert called the Hakusan tooth "the largest specimen found in perfect condition in this country," the newspaper reported.

A former director from the Hakusan Dinosaurs Park Shiramine and the Palaeontological Society of Japan authenticated the tooth.

Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science said the largest tooth found previously in Japan was 2.9 inches long and was found in Mifunemachi in 1979.