Thaindian News

March 29, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): This might be a breakthrough in the study of tyrannosaurus’ evolutionary lineage. For the first time, an international team of paleontologists have found evidence of an ancestor of tyrannosaurs rex in the southern hemisphere. Earlier studies about tyrannosaurus said that they were only found in northern hemisphere after the continents began to separate. Tyrannosaurs had been documented only in Asia, Europe and North America, but a hip bone discovered in Australia could have come only from a tyrannosaur, researchers have concluded.

An international team found the hip bone at Dinosaur Cove in south-west Victoria measuring around 30 cm in length, the pubis bone, and looks like a rod with two expanded ends. One end is flattened and connects to the hip while the other is shaped like a boot. The team was led by Pat Rich, paleontology professor at Monash University (MU), and Tom Rich, honorary researcher in the School of Geosciences.

The new tyrannosaur, known as NMV P186069, has not yet been fully described. It appears to share some basic characteristics with the similarly primitive northern ancestors of T. rex that lived 110 million years ago. Researchers believe the bone would have come from an animal about three meters long and weighing around 80 kg, similar to a human, and would have had the large head and small arms.

The fossil was later identified by Roger Benson of the University of Cambridge with research supported by co-author Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum, London. Benson said,” We think tyrannosaurs became global early in history but for some reason, in the north tyrannosaurs became exceptionally successful predators, and in south, they just dwindled away.”