Teratophoneus
Name: Teratophoneus
(Monstrous murderer).
Phonetic: Teh-rat-oh-foe-nee-us.
Named By: Thomas D. Carr, Thomas E.
Williamson, Brooks B. Britt & Ken Stadtman - 2011
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Theropoda, Tyrannosauridae, Tyrannosaurinae.
Species: T. curriei (type).
Type: Carnivore.
Size: Estimated 6 meters long, but holotype is
possibly a
juvenile specimen.
Known locations: USA, Utah - Kaiparowits
Formation.
Time period: Campanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Skull and partial post
cranial skeleton.
With
a name that translates to English as ‘Monstrous murderer’,
Teratophoneus has arguably one of the most apt
names of any dinosaur,
although the remains suggest that it was smaller than many of the
other tyrannosaurids.
The species name, T.curriei,
is in honour
of palaeontologist Philip J. Currie.
Teratophoneus
was a very interesting find when it was discovered in Utah. Whereas
other tyrannosaurids of the day such as Daspletosaurus
were active in
the North, Teratophoneus was active in the
South. Together with
another tyrannosaurid, Bistahieversor,
this has pushed the known
range of the tyrannosaurids in North America even further.
The
skull of Teratophoneus is very interesting as it is
very blunt compared
to the more typical longer snouts of the tyrannosaurid group.
Compared to the skull of an Albertosaurus,
Teratophoneus is roughly
twenty-three percent shorter in propotion between the lacrimal bone of
the orbital
fenestra and the tip of the snout. The Skull of Teratophoneus
is also
comparably deeper. It is unclear if there was a specific reason for
these differences, but the extra depth may have allowed for stronger
jaw muscles, increasing the bite force of Teratophoneus.
The
morphological differences between the southern Teratophoneus
and other
more well-known tyrannosaurids in the North, suggests that while they
are related, they evolved independently from one another. It could
be that the mountainous areas of Laramidia and the Western Interior
Seaway combined to keep them geographically isolated from their North
American brethren, resulting in the differing morphs.
Further reading
- Evidence for high taxonomic
and morphologic tyrannosauroid diversity in the Late Cretaceous (Late
Campanian) of the American Southwest and a new short-skulled
tyrannosaurid from the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah. -
Naturwissenschaften 98(3):241-246. - T. D. Carr, T. E. Williamson, B.
B. Britt and K. L. Stadtman - 2011.
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