On March 14th, the Smithsonian museum published a press release explaining the meanings of dinosaur fossils discovered from the year 1997 through 2006. The fossils belonged to a horse-size species called Timurlengia euotica that, later on, evolved into a tyrannosaurus species.
Rex dinosaurs are one of the first species that comes to mind when thinking about giant, dangerous, predators from the late Cretaceous Period. But recent studies made by the paleobiology department of the Smithsonian museum and scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS ), have discovered a horse-sized dinosaur species that could explain the evolution of the tyrannosaurus rex.
Hans Sues, the chair of the Paleobiology Department at the museum and senior scientist at the RAS Alexander Averianov, discovered and collected fossils found in a desert called Kyzylkum at the republic of Uzbekistan. The scientists discovered the fossils between 1997 and 2006 while they were co-leading an international expedition at the desert.
Timulengia euotica w as found to be a developed species, with intellectual and cognitive quickness it had the with the ability to hear low-frequency sounds. This last ability and its blade size teeth positioned the predator at the top of the food chain of its time.
“Timulengia was a nimble pursuit hunter, it probably preyed on the various large plant-eaters, especially duck-billed dinosaurs. Clues from its life allow us to fill in gaps and better understand the life and evolution of other related dinosaurs like T. Rex”. Said German-born paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, Hans Sues.
With the size of a horse and 600 pounds of weight, the species was a fast runner thanks to its long legs and lived 80 million years before the tyrannosaurs first appeared.
After the recollection of the fossils, Sues with another team of paleontologists studied the discoverings and even reconstructed the brain of the dinosaur, with the help of CT scans of the brain case. This helped the team get better insights on the newly discovered species.
Even though Timurlengia euotica is not the direct ancestor of the T. Rex, its discovery plays a key feature to finding the real ancestor. Given the fact, that the brain, size, and abilities explain the evolution of the commonly known dinosaur.
Source:Newsdesk