Oldest T. Rex Relative Unveiled

Dr Occult writes "A group of researchers have found the forefather of T. Rex in Xinjiang province in northwestern China. It lived around 160 million years ago. This makes it more than twice as old as T. Rex, and the most primitive known member of the family. The researchers were surprised to learn the 3m long dinosaur sported a spectacular feathered crest on its head which may have been brightly coloured."

Comments

Brightly coloured?

[robthebob]

Just a thought, but how can you tell from a fossil that this animal had a "brightly coloured" and "feathered" nasal crest?!

Re:Brightly coloured?

[archgoon]

From the article: The presence of a nasal crest is particularly interesting, says Norell, because it is so similar to the head ornaments carried by many of today's birds. So, by the sound of it, we've seen other animals that have this bone structure, and they have feathers there (and sounds like it doesn't do anything except have feathers there). As for brightly colored, I don't know where that came from. It's not mentioned in the article, perhaps the submitter read about this somewhere else.

Ha ha ha America

[MillionthMonkey]

Ha ha ha America
China have
T Rex father
160 million year old dinosaur
in Xinjiang province
American hillbilly have
intelligent design
So commence cry
as you not keep up
What no dinosaur?
Too bad so sad
Already you behind
We sell you dinosaur
make you good deal hillbilly!

Re:Ha ha ha America

[Afecks]

America have
bill of rights
democratic elections
ethnic diversity
root name servers
Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Apple....

Dinosaur? Great Wall?

[ben_1432]

This sounds very familiar. Was there a giant gorilla too?

Re:Small

[Vengeance]

This is not T. Rex, though. Merely the earliest known ancestor which can be considered 'Tyrannosauridae'.

T. Rex itself, a favorite of schoolchildren everywhere, is notable for being:

1) Found in the USA
2) REALLY big, although it seems there may have been larger meat-eaters after all (see Giganotosaurus).
3) Rather short of reach. This early ancestor had much more 'normal' length arms.
4) Recent. T. Rex was around at the end of the age of the dinosaurs. This guy was around nearly a hundred million years earlier.

I am not a paleontologist, but I have a five year old. :-)

What Real Scientists Think

[ChaoticCoyote]

Science is a process of debate and analysis, and there have been a couple of interesting threads among paleontologists regarding interpretation of the Guanlong fossil:

Thread 1
Thread 2

Much as I like the artist's depiction of Guanlong, he did take some creative liberties that obscure the underlying science. Ignoring the art and focusing on the article itself, the major item of interest in the crest. Many Jurassic carnosaurs had crests; why this feature evolved, and why it "went away" later is being debated.