\n<\/p>\n
The fossilised remains of two dinosaurs locked in combat have unleashed a fresh drama, suggesting diminutive specimens thought to be Tyrannosaurus rex teenagers could instead be separate, smaller species.<\/p>\n
The \u201cduelling dinosaurs\u201d fossil, which reveals a triceratops in battle with a medium-sized tyrannosaur, was unearthed in Montana by commercial fossil hunters in 2006 and dates to shortly before the asteroid strike that ended the reign of the dinosaurs 66m years ago.<\/p>\n
It only became available for scientific research after it was acquired by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCMNS) in recent years.<\/p>\n
Now researchers say a detailed analysis of the fighting tyrannosaur reveals it is not a juvenile T rex as many had thought but an adult of a different species, Nanotyrannus lancensis.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOur specimen is a fully grown Nanotyrannus<\/em> weighing only 1,500 pounds after two decades of growth,\u201d said Dr Lindsay Zanno, a co-author of the study from North Carolina State University and the head of palaeontology at NCMNS.<\/p>\n \u201cThe anatomy of Nanotyrannus<\/em>, from its higher tooth count, enlarged hands, shorter tail, unique pattern of cranial nerves and sinuses and smaller adult body size, is incompatible with the hypothesis that this skeleton is a teenage T rex,\u201d Zanno said.<\/p>\n The name Nanotyrannus lancensis<\/em> was previously given to a small skull that was reported in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana in 1946. However, experts later argued that specimen, known as the Cleveland skull, was actually a juvenile T rex.<\/em><\/p>\n Now the study by Zanno and colleagues, published in the journal Nature, reveals Nanotyrannus lancensis<\/em> was indeed a species in its own right that lived at the same time and <\/em>inhabited the same ecosystems as T rex.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the team say the skeleton of a juvenile dinosaur named Jane found in the Hell Creek Formation in 2001 is not a young T rex either but a new species of Nanotyrannus<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cOur study suggests some specimens previously argued to represent juveniles of T rex <\/em>are instead Nanotyrannus<\/em>,\u201d Zanno said.<\/p>\n She said the results had important implications. \u201cFor decades, palaeontologists have unknowingly used Nanotyrannus<\/em> specimens as a model for teenage T rex to understand the biology of Earth\u2019s most famous dinosaur \u2013 studies of its locomotion, growth, diet and life history. Those studies need a second look,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Prof Steve Brusatte, of the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the work, said that for many years in his research on tyrannosaurs he had considered a set of smaller skeletons found in the same rocks as T rex fossils to be T rex juveniles.<\/p>\n \u201cI think new evidence from this exquisite new specimen in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences shows that I was wrong \u2013 at least in part,\u201d he said, adding that the analysis of the duelling tyrannosaur offered \u201csolid evidence\u201d Nanotyrannus<\/em> was real.<\/p>\n But Brusatte said he was not convinced there were multiple species of Nanotyrannus<\/em>, while he also pointed out that the multitude of fossilised T rex adults that had been unearthed suggested there should be fossilised juveniles too. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019m not yet ready to proclaim every smaller tyrannosaur skeleton to be Nanotyrannus<\/em>,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of these must be juvenile T rexes, and I think it is ultimately going to be very hard to tell apart adult or near-adult Nanotyrannus<\/em> from teenage T rex.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The fossilised remains of two dinosaurs locked in combat have unleashed a fresh drama, suggesting diminutive specimens thought to be Tyrannosaurus rex teenagers could instead be separate, smaller species. The \u201cduelling dinosaurs\u201d fossil, which reveals a triceratops in battle with a medium-sized tyrannosaur, was unearthed in Montana by commercial fossil hunters in 2006 and dates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[10393,11436,18370,5237,5265,5004,18369],"class_list":{"0":"post-31574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-dinosaurs","9":"tag-discover","10":"tag-duelling","11":"tag-fossil","12":"tag-researchers","13":"tag-species","14":"tag-tyrannosaur"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}