Mini-Tyrannosaurus rex fossil turns theories upsidedown - Times Online Kind of awesome. Raises a lot of interesting theories about their predatory habits too.
The problem is the use of the word "know" is these situations. (not by you, but in general) We "know" very little about dinos, actually, but we suspect and speculate and theorize a lot. People accept these theories and thoughts and ideas as "knowledge" and "facts" and it causes no end of trouble for intelligent discussion and common sense. *sigh*
Hmm. That certainly is an interesting article. I'm not at all surprised that it would upset many ideas of dino evolution.
This isn't some speculative theory, it's a fossil skeleton that represents a new genus of dinosaur. What I find more interesting is how finds are presented as something new and unique, when in fact they aren't. We already know of older, smaller tyrannosaurs, like Guanlong. There's also the tyrannosaur Dilong, which is from the same formation as this new find, and of similar size.
Sorry, I was referring to it "turning everything we know upside down!!!!", because it turned what somepeople, not everyone, thought, not knew, upside down. In general, just the misrepresentation of evidence and what it really means as opposed to what some say or think it means. Yes, this discovery is cool, and does flip some things upside down. But nothing KNOWN was flipped, just things assumed and speculated, that's what I was trying to say.
I agree with you. For all we know, this could be a deformed dino. You never know unless one saw it alive or found multiple evidence. "ZMOG, I discovered a two head goat, and a 3 legged human. It must be a new species."
I assume they can tell its not immature due to the relative proportions of the body parts, such as the feet and skull? Or does that only work with mammals? Furthermore, what are the odds that it is a subspecies of T-rex, selectively adapted to its environment, like (and this is a poor example) Pygmies in Africa? Or would that count as a different species when dealing with dinosaurs anyway?
Well there is a 60 million year gap between this and Tyrannosaurus rex. There are various other Tyrannosaur genera that occur in that time span, such as Gorgosaurus and Alioramus. You'd need a lot of good evidence before you could assign something like this to the genus Tyrannosaurus. For now there's only one recognised species of Tyrannosaurus - T.rex.
Yeah, I guess a giant span of time between the life of the two dinosaurs is a good way to tell, as well. Other than size, what other physiological differences between these two "Tyranosaurs"? I can't see anything major, except possibly the skull shape.
Pretty much. They all have the same basic body plan. Mostly the differences are subtle things in the bones, but a few have distinguishing features. Gorgosaurus is one of the better known tyrannosaurs, and has distinctive horns in front of eye sockets. T.rex has the same bone, but in Gorgosaurus, it's a little more squared off and pointed. I've seen skulls from small monkeys that look very similar to human skulls. But the more familiar you are with the bones, the more obvious the differences become.