Palaeontology

Tyrannosaurus rex 'missing link' revealed

By T.K. Randall
March 15, 2016 ·  3 comments

What were the ancestors of T. rex actually like ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Daniel Schwen Surprisingly very little fossil evidence has ever been found from the Mid Cretaceous - a period of time spanning over 20 million years and about which we know comparatively little about.

One mystery from this long-lost time is how Tyrannosaurus rex, the world's best known predatory dinosaur, evolved from a small bipedal hunter in to a huge, meat-eating behemoth.

Now however scientists may have finally found the answer in the form of a previously unknown species of dinosaur thought to be a distant evolutionary ancestor of T. rex.Known as Timurlengia euotica, this horse-sized meat-eater, which was unearthed at an excavation site in Uzbekistan, has given scientists a unique opportunity to study the transition between the smaller and larger tyrannosaur species over the course of several million years.

New tyrannosaur species who lived 90M years ago is announced - the Timurlengia euotica. https://t.co/aModoUzPep pic.twitter.com/AeYnt9YAZj

— ABC News (@ABC) March 15, 2016

Of particular note was the discovery that the creature's brain was highly developed - much like Tyrannosaurus rex - suggesting that the large size and bulk must have come later.

The researchers concluded their study by writing:

"Timurlengia remains a single data point from a still murky interval in dinosaur history, and future discoveries from this gap will undoubtedly lead to a better understanding of how tyrannosauroids rose from marginal creatures into some of the largest terrestrial predators in Earth history."

Source: Gizmodo | Comments (3)

Tags: Tyrannosaurus, Dinosaur