A nearly complete tyrannosaur skeleton has been found in Utah!

Utah is known to be one of the best places in the United States for finding dinosaur skeletons. Not only does it have lots of skeletons in the ground, it also houses some of the leading dinosaur scientists in the world, as well as having several museums where people can see the fossils for themselves. It’s really a perfect place for dinosaur amateurs and enthusiast!

This week a group from the Natural History Museum of Utah retrieved a large skeleton of a tyrannosaur from Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and it is looking like is it one of the most complete tyrannosaur fossils that have ever been found. The researchers believe that at least 75 % of the bones are preserved, and findings like this one for sure helps us learn more about these prehistoric animals.

An image of the actual skeleton that was found and retrieved. Image by Image by the Natural History Museum of Utah.

The skeleton is expected to be about 76 million years old, which puts it something during the Late Cretaceous Period. The species is most likely to be Teratophoneus curriei, but the scientists are not 100 % sure about the exact species before they have gotten a closer look at the bones.

This means that the tyrannosaur is not the famous Tyrannosaurus rex, yet it’s still a terrifying dinosaur. The scientific genus name Teratophoneus comes from the Greek word “Tetras”, which means monster, and “pheoneus” which means murderer. So its name is a translation of “monster murderer”! The species name curriei is in honor of Philip J. Currie, a famous paleontologist and curator.

It is important to have in mind that the scientists are still unsure if it is in fact a T. curriei. This is the only species in this genus, but it might just happen that this skeleton turns out to be a new species in this genus, or even a closely related species.

A picture of the scientists trying to dig out the skeleton. Image by the Natural History Museum of Utah.

This new fossil will most likely teach us a lot of new stuff about the dinosaur!

The T. curriei dinosaur is not well studied, and most of what we know about it comes from a sub-adult skeleton that was found in Utah some time ago, which is the only skeleton of this species that have ever been found – until now! This gives the researchers a lot of new material to work with, and this fossil will most likely be very important in the knowledge about this species. Hopefully it will tell them something about the genetics of the species, as well as its ecology and behavior.

It will be really exciting to see what the scientists can figure out from the skeleton, but this information is most likely still years away. Until then the scientists at Natural History Museum of Utah have to uncover and prepare the skeleton before any studying of it can be done.

Thanks for reading

If you’re interested in learning more about the finding, then read the announcement at Natural History Museum of Utah’s website.
You could also check out the article over at Science Daily, or the one at The Salk Lake Tribune to get some more info.

Thanks again for reading, and feel free to leave comments or questions below!