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Quirks and Quarks

T. rex had to get smart before it got big

Discovery of a horse-sized tyrannosaur relative reveals developing senses and brain

Discovery of a horse-sized tyrannosaur relative reveals developing senses and brain

CBC Radio ·
Horse-sized primitive tyrannosaur Timurlengia euotica from the middle Cretaceous (ca. 90-92 million years ago) of Uzbekistan. (Image courtesy of Todd Marshall)
Quirks and Quarks8:15T-Rex Had To Get Smart Before It Got Big - 2016/03/19 - Pt. 2
Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest and most fearsome of all predatory dinosaurs. But its early distant relatives, who appeared 170 million years ago, were only about the size of a human, and didn't get much bigger for the next 80 million years. It was only toward the end of the Age of Dinosaurs - between 68 million years ago and its extinction 66 million years ago - that T. rex became the famously massive predator.

But a new species of tyrannosaur, found in Uzbekistan, helps fill in that gap in time and explains why T. rex got so big. The 90-million-year-old fossils were studied by Dr. Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist from The School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh.

The new species - Timurlengia euotica - was as big as a horse, but the size and shape if its skull reveal that its brain and senses were already highly developed. It is believed that Timurlengia needed to become a smart predator with keen senses, before it could become the king of dinosaurs. 

Related Links

- Paper in PNAS
- University of Edinburgh release
- CBC News story
- New York Times story 
- Scientific American story
- Dr. Brusatte previously on Quirks on Super-sized Salamander and Pinocchio Rex

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