Tyrannosaurus found in Victora.

[Arete]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5973/1613

"Tyrannosaurids monopolized the apex predator niche in latest Cretaceous Laurasia. Unfortunately, the preceding 100-million-year tyrannosauroid lineage is poorly documented, and its fossil record is restricted to the northern continents. We report an Australian tyrannosauroid, represented by a pubis from the late Early Cretaceous of Victoria. This demonstrates that these extraordinarily successful predators were not restricted to Laurasia. The advanced morphology and small size of the specimen shows that tyrannosauroids with the characteristic short arms and robust skulls probably had a global distribution in the Early Cretaceous. Thus, a potentially cosmopolitan grade of small tyrannosauroids with a tyrannosaurid-like body plan preceded the Late Cretaceous rise of the colossal tyrannosaurids."

 

[jimmy-dh]

That was very mentally demanding lol

 

[brisneyland]

Jesus put it there last week.

 

[PINT of Stella. mate!]

Awww.

This thread sucks! You're talking about remains! I saw the thread title and thought "No Way! How cool! Has it eaten anyone yet?"

<sigh> maybe one day...

 

[scblack]

Awww.

This thread sucks! You're talking about remains! I saw the thread title and thought "No Way! How cool! Has it eaten anyone yet?"

<sigh> maybe one day...

I'll let you know when they are filming Jurassic Park 4 - will that satisfy you?

 

[Arete]

Can we just build a museum where T rex and Captian Cook are doing the tango while martians play bongo drums?

 

[thecat]

Can we just build a museum where T rex and Captian Cook are doing the tango while martians play bongo drums?

Only if the T-Rex is Rex-G's ancestor and they do the tango in the Gympy pyramid

 

[Joy]

 

[taquar]

Awww.

This thread sucks! You're talking about remains! I saw the thread title and thought "No Way! How cool! Has it eaten anyone yet?"

<sigh> maybe one day...

I was exactly the same!

Was hoping for some epic photos of it throwing Mercedes ML class cars around like it did in JP2

 

[AngoXC]

I'll let you know when they are filming Jurassic Park 4 - will that satisfy you?

NO!!! Not another installment! III was bad enough!

I'll read this artical at uni as I don't have AAAS membership...

 

[FR Drew]

I heard there was some dispute about this one in that no other parts of the remains had been found, and that the crests off the pubis which would provide a positive ID for it falling into the tyrannosaur category were missing and "assumed to have broken off".

That the pubis is similar in shape to those in the tyrannosaur category seems without doubt, but given that no other tyrannosaur relatives are found on any of the land masses previously attached to Australia makes this a bit of a stretch in the absence of other associated parts of the creature in question doesn't it?

 

[Arete]

The fact that the research article was only published 3 days ago leads me to believe that any controversy is hearsay.

Given the paucity of temporal and geographic sampling, significant range extension is well within the realms of reasonable outcomse. Hell, I'm in the middle of writing up a 3000km range extension for a gecko that's both alive and abundant today and only been in situ for 1-2 million years, let alone for a 100 million year period in the Cretaceous. Tyrannids in Lerasia is far less of an extraordinary outcome. Tyrannosaurus eatsbogans is nonetheless cool.

 

[trt-reece]

You an ecologist or something Arete? I'll be reading that article tomorrow at uni too

 

[Dante666]

I'll let you know when they are filming Jurassic Park 4 - will that satisfy you?

Haha, I wish they would give a definite answer on wether they will make the movie or not... speculation is killing me

 

[24alpha]

Can we just build a museum where T rex and Captian Cook are doing the tango while martians play bongo drums?

No! We all know Captain Cook was Urban Myth!

 

[rabatt]

"No Way! How cool! Has it eaten anyone yet?"

<sigh> maybe one day...

you read calvin and hobbs sometimes dont you?

 

[FR Drew]

The fact that the research article was only published 3 days ago leads me to believe that any controversy is hearsay.

Given the paucity of temporal and geographic sampling, significant range extension is well within the realms of reasonable outcome. Hell, I'm in the middle of writing up a 3000km range extension for a gecko that's both alive and abundant today and only been in situ for 1-2 million years, let alone for a 100 million year period in the Cretaceous. Tyrannids in Lerasia is far less of an extraordinary outcome. Tyrannosaurus eatsbogans is nonetheless cool.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's crap, merely curious from an external viewpoint about how concrete the evidence is and what other supporting evidence aside from one damaged pubis with the key confirming indicators missing they have to go on.

Can't read the doc as I'm not subscribed.

 

[Arete]

The pubis is almost identical to those of tyrannosaurids (Fig. 1, B to D). Several distinctive synapomorphies indicate tyrannosauroid affinities. The transversely narrow, parallel-sided pubic boot indicates referral to Coelurosauria (6). The pubic tubercle is broken, but the preserved portion indicates a prominent, anterolaterally curving, flangelike morphology, as in tyrannosaurids (Fig. 1D) and dromaeosaurids (7) (many other features distinguish the dromaeosaurid pubis). This is confirmed by the presence of a rugose lateral surface adjacent to the tubercle, also present in tyrannosaurids.

... This demonstrates that advanced tyrannosauroids with characteristic short arms and powerful jaws achieved a global distribution in the Early Cretaceous. The length of NMV P186046 (307 mm) is only slightly longer than the pubis of Raptorex [279 mm (2)]. Thus, a potentially cosmopolitan grade of small tyrannosauroids with a tyrannosaurid-like body plan preceded the Late Cretaceous rise of the colossal tyrannosaurids

I'm no paleonerd, but it's good enough for me. Palaeo fossil evidence is always sketchy compared to what you'd expect for more recent organisms - more evidence would be great but I don't think it's readily forthcoming.

Reece - I'm an evolutionary biologist/nerd working in a museum.