Fossil find sheds light on Tyrannosaurs rex mystery!

Photo credit: Stephen L Brusatte

New Delhi: In a discovery that could help resolve the Tyrannosaurs rex mystery, paleontologists have found remains of a previously unknown member of the dinosaurs.

The new species of dinosaur, discovered by the US and Russia-based scientists working in Uzbekistan, is named Timurlengia, is 90 million years old.

Scientists believe that the grapefruit-sized partial skull could help shed light on the evolutionary key to why T rex became so huge and dominant.

The new T rex, which was found in Montana and dates to 68 million years ago, retained medullary bone that reveals the individual was pregnant. It is said that medullary bone is only found in female living dinosaurs, i.e. birds, just before and during egg laying.

Describing the new species, Stephen L Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and lead author of the study said: “It has long been thought that tyrannosaurs were such successful predators, in part, because of their large brains and ears well-attuned to low-frequency sound.”

Upon analyzing, the team found that the new tyrannosaur has basically the same brain as Trex in terms of shape and proportions, only smaller.

The findings habe been published in the March 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.