New species of Allosaurus discovered in Utah

[Still Waters]

A remarkable new species of meat-eating dinosaur has been unveiled at the Natural History Museum of Utah. Paleontologists unearthed the first specimen in early 1990s in Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Utah. The huge carnivore inhabited the flood plains of western North America during the Late Jurassic Period, between 157-152 million years ago, making it the geologically oldest species of Allosaurus, predating the more well-known state fossil of Utah, Allosaurus fragilis. The newly named dinosaur Allosaurus jimmadseni, was announced today in the open-access scientific journal PeerJ.

"Previously, paleontologists thought there was only one species of Allosaurus in Jurassic North America, but this study shows there were two species—the newly described Allosaurus jimmadseni evolved at least 5 million years earlier than its younger cousin, Allosaurus fragilis,"

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-species-allosaurus-utah.html

[Carnoferox]

This is a prime example of how long proper descriptions can take in paleontology. Allosaurus jimmadseni was informally named in an unpublished thesis in 2000, and has just now been formally named 20 years later.

[newbloodmoon]

Another solid entry of my favorite branch of carnivores dinosaurs.