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The Tyrannosaur Thread- Anything T. rex or tyrannosaurid related

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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Famous T. rex specimen Stan has been sold by the ridiculous sum of US$27.5 million, making it the most expensive dinosaur specimen ever ("Sue", another T. rex, was sold by US$8.3 million back in 1997). Stan was expected to sell for a similar amount.
    The buyer has not been revealed yet.

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/christies-sells-stan-the-t-rex-for-27-5m-01602036284?fbclid=IwAR2eOaMDsOe57WP1kQ0itBdp1a6JmhCezVFt1_6FRLxUW8Ed0TUZliApAvU

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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    First hatchling/embryo remains of a tyrannosaur identified! This is big news, as the fossil record of these creatures is rich in adult and large juvenile individuals, but we know next to nothing about their earliest growth stages.
    "These are incredibly rare finds — the first of their kind in the world," lead researcher Gregory Funston, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, told Live Science in an email. "Juvenile tyrannosaurs of any kind are exceedingly rare, and we've never found any bones that we suspected might be embryos, until now."

    The teensy, 1.1-inch-long (2.9 centimeters) tyrannosaur jawbone still sports eight little teeth. Because it was stuck in the surrounding rock, the researchers scanned the jawbone with a particle accelerator, which let them image the fossil without excavating it. Despite the jawbone's miniature size, "it looks surprisingly like other juvenile tyrannosaurid jaws," Funston said. "It has a deep groove on the inside and a distinct chin, which are both features that distinguish tyrannosaurs from other meat-eating dinosaurs."

    These features helped convince other paleontologists that the jawbone truly is from a tyrannosaur — "we can know that these features can be used to identify tyrannosaurs no matter how immature they are,"



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    No eggs or egg shells associated with tyrannosaurs have ever been found, which has led to the suggestion that tyrannosaurs may have laid soft-shelled eggs, like those of turtles or snakes, instead of hard-shelled like those of birds. Other dinosaurs (such as Protoceratops and Mussaurus) are already known to have laid soft-shelled eggs.

    The newborn tyrannosaur would've had a skull around 9 cm long (average skull length for house cats is around 9-10 cm).


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Famous T. rex "Sue" had deformed teeth due to parasitic infection, suffered great pain at the end of its life, study suggests:

    https://www.livescience.com/sue-t-rex-terrible-teeth.html

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    The infection is believed to have been a prehistoric version of trichomoniasis, a disease that also affects modern day birds.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Famous "Dueling Dinos" (which likely did not die dueling), until now in private hands, is now finally available for scientific study, and there's some tantalizing clues that the tyrannosaur may not in fact be Tyrannosaurus rex, despite coming from a fossil site (Hell's Creek Formation) where only T. rex had been confirmed among tyrannosaurids/giant theropods.

    [IMG][/img]julaug2017_b05_hellcreekdinos.jpg

    According to paleontologists Peter Larson and Gregory Paul, the tyrannosaur found fossilized along with a ceratopsid has huge arms and fingers, proportionally, far beyond what one would expect from a juvenile tyrannosaurid. Paul goes as far as to suggest that it may actually be a dryptosaurid, a member of a different linneage that evolved in Appalachia (eastern North America) and known until now from only incomplete remains. We know dryptosaurids, unlike tyrannosaurids, had large and robust arms with large claws.

    If confirmed, this would be proof that a) Tyrannosaurus rex was not the only large theropod in Hell Creek, and b) the Appalachian dryptosaurids managed to reach Laramidia (now western North America) and met their small armed tyrannosaurid cousins at the end of the Cretaceous before both went extinct.

    If it does turn out to be a dryptosaurid, it will be the first good look at one since the discovery of Dryptosaurus' fragmentary remains in 1866...

    Dryptosaurus-Frederik-Spindler_3caf.jpg


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    The embryo tyrannosaur fossils are on the news.

    Although fragmentary, they show baby tyrannosaurs would've been around 1 m long at birth, making them the largest known hatchlings among dinosaurs, and that they would have looked quite like smaller versions of the adults, down to the distinctive "chin" on the lower jaw.

    The remains of the eggs have not been found which has prompted some paleontologists to suggest that tyrannosaurs laid soft-shelled eggs, making their preservation more difficult. However, they estimate a baby tyrannosaur would've hatched from an egg around 43 cm long.

    The genus/species of the hatchlings is not known.

    https://www.cnet.com/news/baby-tyrannosaur-dinosaurs-were-the-size-of-dogs-fossil-fragments-show/

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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor




  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Bitten bone fossils from New Mexico add to the evidence of tyrannosaur cannibalism:

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348002335_NEW_EVIDENCE_FOR_CANNIBALISM_IN_TYRANNOSAURID_DINOSAURS_FROM_THE_UPPER_CRETACEOUS_CAMPANIANMAASTRICHTIAN_SAN_JUAN_BASIN_OF_NEW_MEXICO

    1428609269-tyran-2.jpg

    Apparently whether the other tyrannosaur was dead or alive mattered little.


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