The fossils of a previously undiscovered dinosaur have been revealed in New Mexico: the 80-million-year-old Dynamoterror dynastes. The Dynamoterror, or “powerful terror ruler” if you prefer, was a 30-foot tyrannosaur that bears its massive size in common with its more famous colleague, the T. rex.
The discovery is something of a miracle, as the bones that were first discovered in 2012 were broken and scattered. Years of work have led to the piecing together of bones necessary for identification bones, and the announcement of the newly discovered tyrannosaur was published Tuesday in PeerJ.
The just-discovered dinosaur becomes one of roughly 25 tyrannosaurs currently recognized. It was likely the king predator of its time, predating the T. rex by 12-14 million years. The evolutionary development of the Dynamoterror suggests that, as New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science paleontologist Thomas Williamson told Smithsonian Magazine, “derived tyrannosaurs must have arisen at an even earlier date” than was previously known.
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