Introducing Moros intrepidus, the harbinger of doom.

Moros intrepidus. Credit: Jorge Gonzalez

Tyrannosauroidea, the superfamily of carnivorous dinosaurs that includes the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex, originated in the Middle Jurassic, approximately 165 million years ago, and was a dominant component of the dinosaur faunas of the Northern Hemisphere. All tyrannosaurs were bipedal predators characterized by premaxillary teeth with a D-shaped cross section, fused nasals, extreme pneumaticity in the skull roof and lower jaws, a pronounced muscle attachment ridge on the ilium, and an elevated femoral head. But for most of their evolutionary history, tyrannosauroids were mostly small-bodied animals and only reached gigantic size during the final 20 million years of the Cretaceous. Now, the discovery of a new, diminutive tyrannosauroid, Moros intrepidus gen. et sp. nov., shed lights on the successful radiation of Campanian tyrannosauroids.

The holotype (NCSM 33392), preserves a partial right hind limb including portions of the femur, tibia, second and fourth metatarsals, and phalanges of the fourth pedal digit. It was recovered from the lower Mussentuchit Member (6–7 m above the Ruby Ranch contact), upper Cedar Mountain Formation, Emery County, Utah, USA. This small-bodied, gracile-limbed tyrannosauroid lived about 96 million years ago. The name derived from Greek word Moros (an embodiment of impending doom) in reference to the establishment of the Cretaceous tyrannosauroid lineage in NA, and the Latin word intrepidus (intrepid), in reference to the hypothesized intracontinental dispersal of tyrannosaurs during this interval.

Bone microstructure of M. intrepidus (NCSM 33392). From Zanno et al., 2019.

NCSM 33392 derives from a skeletally immature individual (6-7 years) nearing adult size . According to the histological analysis, M. intrepidus exhibits a moderate growth rate, similar to Guanlong, a more primitive tyrannosauroid from the Late Jurassic of China. By contrast, large-bodied, tyrannosaurines from the last stages of the Cretaceous, like Gorgosaurus, were already triple their masses at similar ages. M. intrepidus suggests that North American tyrannosauroids were restricted to small sizes for a protracted period of ~15 million years and at some point at the Turonian, they embarked on a trend of rapid body size increases, to became the top predators of the Cretaceous.

 

References:

Zanno, L.E, Tucker, R.T., Canoville, A., Avrahami, H.M., Gates, T.A., Makovicky, P.J. (2019), Diminutive fleet-footed tyrannosauroid narrows the 70-million-year gap in the North American fossil record, Communications Biology, DOI: 10.1038/s42003-019-0308-7