New T-Rex ancestor discovered in drawers of Mongolian institute
This slender ancestor of the massive Tyrannosaurus Rex was around four metres (13 feet) long and weighed three quarters of a tonne, according to a new study in the journal Nature.
"It would have been the size of a very large horse," study co-author Darla Zelenitsky of Canada's University of Calgary told AFP.
The fossils were first dug up in southeastern Mongolia in the early 1970s but at the time were identified as belonging to a different tyrannosaur, Alectrosaurus.
For half a century, the fossils sat in the drawers at the Institute of Paleontology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in the capital Ulaanbaatar.
Then PhD student Jared Voris, who was on a trip to Mongolia, started looking through the drawers and noticed something was wrong, Zelenitsky said.
It turned out the fossils were well-preserved, partial skeletons of two different individuals of a completely new species.
"It is quite possible that discoveries like this are sitting in other museums that just have not been recognised," Zelenitsky added.
- 'Messy' family history -
They named the new species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which roughly means the dragon prince of Mongolia because it is smaller than the "king" T-Rex.
Zelenitsky said the discovery "helped us clarify a lot about the family history of the tyrannosaur group because it was really messy previously".
The T-Rex represented the end of the family line.
It was the apex predator in North America until 66 million years ago, when an asteroid bigger than Mount Everest slammed into the Gulf of Mexico.
Three quarters of life on Earth was wiped out, including all the dinosaurs that did not evolve into birds.
Around 20 million years earlier, Khankhuuluu -- or another closely related family member -- is now believed to have migrated from Asia to North America using the land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska.
This led to tyrannosaurs evolving across North America.
Then one of these species is thought to have crossed back over to Asia, where two tyrannosaur subgroups emerged.
One was much smaller, weighing under a tonne, and was nicknamed Pinocchio rex for its long snout.
The other subgroup was huge and included behemoths like the Tarbosaurus, which was only a little smaller than the T-rex.
One of the gigantic dinosaurs then left Asia again for North America, eventually giving rise to the T-Rex, which dominated for just two million years -- until the asteroid struck.
dl/gil
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
4 days ago
- ABC News
Future of world-significant fossil site secured with Nilpena cattle station sale
A quarter of a century ago, Ross and Jane Fargher opened the gates of their cattle station, Nilpena, to a team of palaeontologists to examine fossils found in the property's rocky hills. So began a long love affair with the remote property in South Australia's Flinders Ranges for US palaeontologist Mary Droser and her family. "These rocks capture the dawn of animal life," Dr Droser said. "And so imagine turning over a rock and having those fossils see the light of day for the first time in over half a billion years. Those "crazy things" are fossils of soft-bodied marine organisms that existed before animals had skeletons, when the arid area 530 kilometres north of Adelaide was more ocean that outback. Since Ross Fargher uncovered the fossil site in the mid-1980s, Dr Droser and her team from the University of California, along with experts from the South Australian Museum, have excavated 40 ancient sea beds. The largest one, which they've focused on recently, is known as Fun Bed. "As you look across the surface you can see lots of bumps and squiggles, and every inch of this bed is covered with the fossilised remains of organisms," Dr Droser said. Some are familiar, like the poster child of the Ediacaran period, Dickinsonia, and South Australia's state fossil emblem, Spriggina. Spriggina is named after Australian geologist Reg Sprigg, who discovered these types of fossils in the Ediacara Hills in 1946, inspiring the name of the Ediacaran period. Other fossils on Fun Bed are newer finds, including Obamus coronatus, named after former US president Barack Obama. "This guy here is called Quaestio simpsonorum, which has a question mark in the middle of it," Dr Droser explained as she pointed to the fossil. "This was newly discovered on this bed and we have about 15 on this bed, and it's totally whacky." Someone who has worked and played on these hills almost as long as Mary Droser is her son Ian Hughes, who started coming to Nilpena as a baby. "I love being out here. The people are family and also the science, there's just so many fossils," Mr Hughes said. Now 25, the Harvard University marine biology PhD student dedicates a good deal of his time to Earth's ancient sea creatures including the wormlike Uncus dzaugisi, which he identified last year. "We're really quite confident that it was an early ecdysozoan and so this is a member of a group of animals that includes things like insects and nematode worms, so a really exciting advanced fossil for the Ediacaran." As more rare rocks have been revealed, including what Dr Droser says are the fossilised remains of our oldest relative, researchers are gaining a much clearer view of the big picture. "We're starting to understand how these communities functioned," Dr Droser said. "So yes, I have no plan of ending in the very near future. I have a lot of great students who will continue to work here, because one day it will be very hard for me to make it up these hills." But while Mary Droser's work will continue, the farming family who invited her on to Nilpena are farewelling the property they've called home for more than 40 years. In 2019, the Farghers sold two-thirds of the station to the South Australian government, which turned it into the Nilpena Ediacara National Park. "We were keen to not just sell it as a pastoral lease, because the next people that bought it may not be interested in fossils," Ross Fargher said. And now, as the site attracts more attention, the Farghers are signing over the rest of the property to the government, which is extending the park. "It'll probably hit home when we drive out with our last load of gear from the homestead at the end of the year. At the moment it still feels like it's our place," Mr Fargher said. "Jane and Ross are family … [it's] very sad for us, but I think you have to look at the future and how things move ahead and what's best for everybody," Dr Droser said. It's a legacy that is set to make it onto a very elite list. Nilpena is at the centre of a decade-long bid for the Flinders Ranges to make it onto UNESCO's World Heritage List for its role in telling the story of the dawn of animal life. "World Heritage is a really long process. I'm not sure how many of them I want to do in my lifetime," SA National Parks program director Jason Irving said. "We started this one in 2016, and ideally in 2027, if all goes well, we will be on the World Heritage list." Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or stream anytime on ABC iview.
ABC News
23-07-2025
- ABC News
Triassic reptile's bizarre crest shakes up feather evolution theories
Mammals these days have hair, birds have feathers, and reptiles have neither. But the relative nakedness of today's reptiles may not have been the case 247 million years ago, when at least one reptile species appeared to be quite experimental with its embellishments. That's according to fossils of a creature that lived at the beginning of the Triassic period and sported a curious crest running down its spine. The crest, while feather-like, pre-dates feathers by millions of years. A new study published in Nature has described the crested reptile, which was dubbed Mirasaura grauvogeli. Stephan Spiekman, study lead author and a researcher at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, said he was fascinated by the creature's complex appendages — particularly since it didn't belong to the group of animals that eventually grew feathers. "Mirasaura was a type of reptile that was very different from dinosaurs and their close relatives," Dr Spiekman said. Stephen Poropat, a palaeontologist at Curtin University who wasn't involved with the research, called the fossils an "extraordinary" find. The Mirasaura fossils were discovered by French palaeontologist Louis Grauvogel in the 1930s in north-eastern France. He found rocks containing small reptilian skeletons, alongside fan-like depressions made from plumes up to 15 centimetres long. Professor Grauvogel thought the mysterious fans were fish fins or insect wings, and didn't connect them to the reptilian skeletons found in the same fossils. In 2019, decades after his death, Professor Grauvogel's collection was acquired by the museum in nearby Stuttgart, and researchers realised that 80 of the fossils belonged to the same animal. The researchers named the creature Mirasaura grauvogeli, which means "Grauvogel's wondrous reptile". But they couldn't immediately tell what the mysterious crests on the creatures' backs were made of. "It was clear pretty quickly that these appendages were not feathers or hairs in the traditional sense," Dr Spiekman said. The team used a number of techniques, including powerful X-rays and electron microscopes, to reconstruct what the creature looked like and figure out the composition of the crests. They discovered remnants of tiny cells called "melanosomes" preserved in the fossil crests, which make the colours in hair, skin and feathers. The melanosomes were shaped similarly to those found in feathers, Dr Spiekman said. "This could indicate that the tissue that they are composed of is quite similar to that of feathers." But the appendages were clearly different to feathers: they didn't have any of the key branching features feathers develop as they grow. "This shows that the structures grew in a largely different way than feathers," Dr Spiekman said. Anatomical analyses of the reptile's skeleton also showed that it belonged to a different group of reptiles to the one that eventually became the dinosaurs. John Long, a palaeontologist at Flinders University who wasn't involved in the research, said that the existence of Mirasaura has profound implications for understanding how feathers and skin evolved. "Prior to this discovery, it was thought that only birds and dinosaurs evolved feather-like structures, and mammals modified those feather-like structures to develop hair," Professor Long said. "This is a third group of animals yet discovered that actually have feather-like structures as part of their skin." Dr Poropat said the discovery helped explain another highly controversial fossil find from a similar time period, called Longisquama insignis. The extinct Longisquama reptile, which was discovered more than 50 years ago, also had feather-like appendages, but its fossils weren't preserved well enough to identify them properly. This led to fierce debates about whether or not the Longisquama reptile had real feathers. "The finding of Mirasaura demonstrates Longisquama's structures are not feathers, because the Mirasaura reptile's are very similar and they're not feathers either," Dr Poropat said. "I'm quite relieved to see that Longisquama finally has a home." The researchers believe the reptiles used the crest to communicate with each other. "It seems most likely that it was used for signalling to other members of the same species, either to attract a mate, or to warn off a competitor, or both," Dr Spiekman said. Professor Long said that we can only speculate about the crest's function, but he agreed that communication was a likely reason. "Certainly today, visual signalling is incredibly important for birds and for many reptiles," he said. Dr Poropat pointed out the Mirasaura reptile lived a few million years after the catastrophic Permian mass extinction. This may have favoured the evolution of more bizarre behaviours and body structures because there was less competition. "The animals that did survive that extinction event were basically free to experiment with all sorts of different modes of life." While the Mirasaura reptile isn't a precursor to the dinosaurs, its existence suggests that other Triassic creatures could also have had strange features that haven't survived fossilisation. "Because soft tissue is so seldom preserved, we are getting an incomplete picture of the past almost inevitably," Dr Poropat said.
ABC News
11-07-2025
- ABC News
Old and smelly: Farts from the past
Fossils tell us a lot about the past, but are there fossilised farts? (Spoiler, YES!) Look back at great farts of history, and the story of methane. Do birds not fart? And which creature is responsible for the stinkiest? Listen to part one (Does it Fart?!) here. Featuring: Dani Rabaiotti, Author of Does it Fart? and Zoological Society of London. Dani Rabaiotti, Author of Does it Fart? and Zoological Society of London. Dr Nick Gales, Former Head of Australian Antarctic Division. Dr Nick Gales, Former Head of Australian Antarctic Division. Prof Dave Watson, Charles Sturt University. Prof Dave Watson, Charles Sturt University. Prof Jeffrey Stillwell, Adjunct Monash Uni Prof Jeffrey Stillwell, Adjunct Monash Uni Dr Adam Munn, Biologist. Production: Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer. Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer. Petria Ladgrove, Producer. Petria Ladgrove, Producer. Jo Khan, Producer. This episode of What the Duck?! was first broadcast in 2022 and was produced on the land of the Wadawarrung and the Kaurna people. Stream the brand-new series Dr Ann's Secret Lives on ABC iview.
