Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a miniature T. Rex that lived over 125 million years ago in what is now northwest China.
The recently discovered species is not a T. Rex but a related species that lived about sixty million years before its more famous cousin, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Named Raptorex Kriegsteini, the carnivore weighed in at 150 pounds and, from head to tail, measured nine feet. In comparison, T. Rex was over forty feet long and weighed anywhere from five to eight tons, making it approximately a hundred times larger than Raptorex.
Despite its small size, paleontologists believe the Tyrannosaurus would have been a formidable predator. Specifically, the researchers found that Raptorex was equipped with tiny forelimbs, long legs, powerful jaw muscles, an oversized head relative to its torso and enlarged olfactory bulbs (implying a heightened sense of smell) - all hallmarks of its overgrown cousin.
The dinosaur's startling resemblance to T. Rex has excited paleontologists. From the fossil record, scientists know that other primitive tyrannosaur-like dinosaurs existed millions of years before the famous icon. But their similarities to T. Rex and its relatives were limited. Raptorex is the exception.
The discovery may force paleontologists to re-evaluate the evolution of T. Rex, given the possibility that tyrannosaur-like dinosaurs evolved much earlier than previously thought.
The Raptorex fossil was discovered in Inner Mongolia and smuggled into the United States. It passed through the hands of a vendor and a private collector who donated it to science before reaching a team led by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno. After the skeleton is studied, it will be returned to a museum in Inner Mongolia.
The findings were published in the Journal of Science and funded by the Whitten-Newman Foundation and the National Geographic Society.
