New Tyrannosaur Species "King of Gore"
Published:
A fossil of a new species of tyrannosaur has been discovered in Late Cretaceous strata (about 80 million years ago) in Utah, USA.
Its scientific name is "Lythronax argestes," which means "king of gore from the southwest."
Lythronax lived on the western side of North America at the time. The discovered individual is estimated to have been 7.3 meters long and weighed about 2.5 tons.
It had the same characteristics as Tyrannosaurus rex, which lived around 65.5 million years ago: "thick teeth," "forward-facing eyes," and "small forelimbs."
According to Mark Loewen of the University of Utah, who led the research, "Lythronax is not a direct ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, but it is clear that they branched off from a common ancestor earlier than that."