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This small but tearing " mini rex " was a jackanapes equate with the dinosaur Riley B King . Now dubbedSuskityrannus hazelae , thetyrannosaurwould have tip the shell at no more than 90 lbs . ( 40 kg ) . In line . T. rexweighed a whopping 18,000 lbs . ( 8,160 kg ) .
" The animal would have take care a minute more like the " Jurassic Park"Velociraptorsin term of sizing and drumhead height than its later huge congener , likeT. male monarch , " say study lead researcher Sterling Nesbitt , an adjunct professor in the Department of Geosciences at the Virginia Tech College of Science . [ Photos : flyspeck Tyrannosaur Dinosaur Was About As Big As T. Rex ’s Skull ]
Nesbitt found the fossils ofS. hazelaein 1998, when he was a teenager.
Nesbitt found the remains of this unbelievable dinosaur when he was a pipsqueak himself — just a 16 - year - previous high - school student who was on a dig expedition in western New Mexico in May 1998 . That digging was go by Doug Wolfe , the Colorado - founding father and CEO of the Zuni Dinosaur Institute for Geosciences in Springerville , Arizona , who is a co - author on the study .
In fact , the first partial skull of the mini Tyrannosaurus rex was discover in 1997 by Robert Denton , now a senior geologist with Terracon Consultants , an engineering consulting firm in New Jersey . As a teenager , Nesbitt was acute tofind more of that specimen , so he went to the same location to track down for related os . But " on my way there , I found the cadaver of the more staring specimen , " Nesbitt told Live Science in an electronic mail . " I spent the next few days with my eyes glued to the ground looking for all the little fragments of os . "
The specimen Nesbitt found is so double-dyed , it ’s helping researchers larn about this itty-bitty Tyrannosaurus rex , which predatesT. rexby about 25 million years .
The nameSuskityrannus hazelaeis derived from “Suski,” the Zuni Native American tribe word for “coyote.” The species name honors Hazel Wolfe, whose support made the finding possible.
For instance , S. hazelaestood about 3 human foot ( 1 m ) tall at the hip and measured about 9 foot ( 3 metre ) from foreland to tail . To put that in view , the skull ofSue theT. rexat the Field Museum in Chicago is about 5 metrical foot ( 1.5 m ) long .
In addition , the unparalleled anatomy ofS.hazelaeshows how the older and smaller tyrannosauroids from North America andChinawere linked to the larger tyrannosaurids that lasted until theasteroid flap down into Earthabout 66 million years ago . In fact , S. hazelaeis one of the last small tyrannosauroids on record . The lineage ofT. rexandS.hazelaedate back to the middle Jurassic , but it was n’t until the end of the Cretaceous catamenia , about 85 million years ago , that these dinosaurs induce huge , Nesbitt said .
" Suskityrannusis a key radio link between the enormous pearl - craunch dinosaurs likeT. rexand the small species they evolve from , " Steve Brusatte , a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh , who was not involved in the field , said in a instruction . " The raw species shows that tyrannosaurs developed many of their theme song features like amuscular skull , encompassing mouth and a jounce - absorb foot when they were still low , maybe as adaption for live on in the shadow . "
Unfortunately , theCretaceous - agetyrannosaur died as a youngster ; S. hazelae was only about 3 year old when it conk , according a development ring analytic thinking of its bones . ( Like trees , dinosaur bones lay down new rings as the animate being grew . )
The study was published online today ( May 6 ) in the journalNature Ecology & Evolution .
Originally published onLive Science .
