Only Three-Foot-Tall Relative Of Tyrannosaurus Rex – Discovered

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – Researchers have discovered a new relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex that was only 3 feet tall at the hip and was about 9 feet in length.

The entire animal was only marginally longer than the just the skull of a fully grown Tyrannosaurus rex, according to Sterling Nesbitt, an assistant professor with Department of Geosciences in the Virginia Tech College of Science, who found the fossil whilst a high school student participating in a dig expedition in New Mexico in 1998.

An artist’s rendering of how Suskityrannus hazelae may have looked. Artwork by Andrey Atuchin.

Suskityrannus hazelae is believed to have weighed between 45 and 90 pounds. The typical weight for a full-grown Tyrannosaurus rex is roughly 9 tons. 

Its diet likely consisted of the same as its larger meat-eating counterpart, with Suskityrannus hazelae likely hunting small animals, although what it hunted is unknown. The dinosaur was at least 3 years old at death based on an analysis of its growth from its bones.

The fossil dates back 92 million years to the Cretaceous Period, a time when some of the largest dinosaurs ever found lived.

“Suskityrannus gives us a glimpse into the evolution of tyrannosaurs just before they take over the planet,” Nesbitt said in a press release, adding that the creature belongs to a dinosaurian fauna that just proceeds the iconic dinosaurian faunas in the latest Cretaceous that include some of the most famous dinosaurs, such as the Triceratops, predators like Tyrannosaurus rex, and duckbill dinosaurs like Edmotosaurus.”

“Suskityrannus has a much more slender skull and foot than its later and larger cousins, the Tyrannosaurus rex. The find also links the older and smaller tyrannosauroids from North America and China with the much larger tyrannosaurids that lasted until the final extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.

The name Suskityrannus hazelae is derived from “Suski,” the Zuni Native American tribe word for “coyote,” and from the Latin word ‘tyrannus’ meaning king and ‘hazelae’ for Hazel Wolfe, whose support made possible many successful fossil expeditions in the Zuni Basin. Nesbitt said permission was granted from the Zuni Tribal Council to use the word “Suski.”

No arm fossils of either specimen were found, but partial, small hand claws were found.

Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer