New T-Rex ancestor discovered in drawers of Mongolian institute
PARIS, June 12 — Misidentified bones that languished in the drawers of a Mongolian institute for 50 years belong to a new species of tyrannosaur that rewrites the family history of the mighty T-Rex, scientists said yesterday.
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 Palaeontology 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. — AFP
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The Star
a day ago
- The Star
Mongolia's 'Dragon Prince' dinosaur was forerunner of T. rex
This handout artist's illustration made available by University of Calgary on June 6, 2025, shows the newly discovered dinosaur species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, an ancestor of Tyrannosaurus Rex. - AFP WASHINGTON: A newly identified mid-sized dinosaur from Mongolia dubbed the "Dragon Prince" has been identified as a pivotal forerunner of Tyrannosaurus rex in an illuminating discovery that has helped clarify the famous predator's complicated family history. Named Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, it lived roughly 86 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period and was an immediate precursor to the dinosaur lineage called tyrannosaurs, which included some of the largest meat-eating land animals in Earth's history, among them T. rex. Khankhuuluu predated Tyrannosaurus by about 20 million years. It was about 4 metres long, weighed about 750 kg, walked on two legs and had a lengthy snout with a mouthful of sharp teeth. More lightly built than T. rex, its body proportions indicate Khankhuuluu was fleet-footed, likely chasing down smaller prey such as bird-like dinosaurs called oviraptorosaurs and ornithomimosaurs. The largest-known T. rex specimen is 12.3 metres. Khankhuuluu means "Dragon Prince" in the Mongolian language. Tyrannosaurus rex means "tyrant king of the lizards." "In the name, we wanted to capture that Khankhuuluu was a small, early form that had not evolved into a king. It was still a prince," said paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky of the University of Calgary in Canada, co-author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. Tyrannosaurs and all other meat-eating dinosaurs are part of a group called theropods. Tyrannosaurs appeared late in the age of dinosaurs, roaming Asia and North America. Khankhuuluu shared many anatomical traits with tyrannosaurs but lacked certain defining characteristics, showing it was a predecessor and not a true member of the lineage. "Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite. For example, the bone along the top of the snout and the bones around the eye are somewhat different from what we see in tyrannosaurs. The snout bone was hollow and the bones around the eye didn't have all the horns and bumps seen in tyrannosaurs," Zelenitsky said. "Khankhuuluu had teeth like steak knives, with serrations along both the front and back edges. Large tyrannosaurs had conical teeth and massive jaws that allowed them to bite with extreme force then hold in order to subdue very large prey. Khankhuuluu's more slender teeth and jaws show this animal took slashing bites to take down smaller prey," Zelenitsky added. The researchers figured out its anatomy based on fossils of two Khankhuuluu individuals dug up in the 1970s but only now fully studied. These included parts of its skull, arms, legs, tail and back bones. The Khankhuuluu remains, more complete than fossils of other known tyrannosaur forerunners, helped the researchers untangle this lineage's evolutionary history. They concluded that Khankhuuluu was the link between smaller forerunners of tyrannosaurs and later true tyrannosaurs, a transitional animal that reveals how these meat-eaters evolved from speedy and modestly sized species into giant apex predators. "What started as the discovery of a new species ended up with us rewriting the family history of tyrannosaurs," said University of Calgary doctoral student and study lead author Jared Voris. "Before this, there was a lot of confusion about who was related to who when it came to tyrannosaur species." Some scientists had hypothesized that smaller tyrannosaurs like China's Qianzhousaurus - dubbed "Pinnochio-rexes" because of their characteristic long snouts - reflected the lineage's ancestral form. That notion was contradicted by the fact that tyrannosaur forerunner Khankhuuluu differed from them in important ways. "The tyrannosaur family didn't follow a straightforward path where they evolved from small size in early species to larger and larger sizes in later species," Zelenitsky said. Voris noted that Khankhuuluu demonstrates that the ancestors to the tyrannosaurs lived in Asia. "Around 85 million years ago, these tyrannosaur ancestors crossed a land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska and evolved in North America into the apex predatory tyrannosaurs," Voris said. One line of North American tyrannosaurs later trekked back to Asia and split into two branches - the "Pinnochio-rexes" and massive forms like Tarbosaurus, the researchers said. These apex predators then spread back to North America, they said, paving the way for the appearance of T. rex. Tyrannosaurus ruled western North America at the end of the age of dinosaurs when an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago. "Khankhuuluu was where it all started but it was still only a distant ancestor of T. rex, at nearly 20 million years older," Zelenitsky said. "Over a dozen tyrannosaur species evolved in the time between them. It was a great-great-great uncle, sort of." - Reuters
Malay Mail
a day ago
- Malay Mail
New T-Rex ancestor discovered in drawers of Mongolian institute
PARIS, June 12 — Misidentified bones that languished in the drawers of a Mongolian institute for 50 years belong to a new species of tyrannosaur that rewrites the family history of the mighty T-Rex, scientists said yesterday. 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 Palaeontology 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. — AFP
Free Malaysia Today
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