King of gore dinosaur was the 'bad grandpa' of tyrannosaurs

Source: Los Angeles Times

King of gore dinosaur was the 'bad grandpa' of tyrannosaurs

By Geoffrey Mohan
November 6, 2013, 1:49 p.m.

Meet the king of gore, a "bad grandpa" of Tyrannosaurus rex that tore through flesh with banana-shaped, meat-cleaver teeth.

Lythronax argestes, which translates roughly as Southwestern king of gore, appeared on the ancient island continent of Laramidia around 80 million years ago, when a rising inland sea divided the North American continent, according to a study published Wednesday in the online journal PLOS One.

That’s a much earlier appearance, by about 10 million years, for the class of dinosaurs known as tyrannosaurids, and suggests there may be many more species remaining undiscovered in the sedimentary rocks of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, according to University of Utah geologist Randall Irmis, curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah.

“We knew there were other close relatives of Tyrannosuarus rex around by 76 (million), 77 million years ago, but what was unexpected was not only was it even older, but this new species is one of the closest relatives of Tyranosaurus rex, which lived 66 million years ago,” Irmis said. “So, it was really weird that the oldest tyrannosaurid yet discovered is actually one of the closest relatives of the youngest tyrannosaurids out there, which is T. rex”

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-king-of-gore-dinosaur-20131106,0,1561347.story