Teratophoneus curieii

Teratophoneus Pair

Yesterday we went to the  University of Utah's   Rio Tinto   Utah Museum of Natural History.  There was a great temporary exhibit on the Maya Civilization.  They also have some amazing permanent exhibits of prehistoric mammals and dinosaurs etc.  This drawing is based on their pair of Teratophoneus Tyrannosaurs.  The fossils of this dinosaur were found in Southern Utah.  

Teratophoneus was probably and ancestor to Tyrannosaurus rex.  It lived 77 to 76 million years ago . . . while T. rex lived 62-65 million years ago.  Both species lived in the Cretaceous Period.  They had powerful bites and small arms and hands with only two claws on each hand. 

I want to note that Teratophoneus had a shorter snout than other Tyrannosaurs.  This new drawing probably should have been done with somewhat shorter snout on the dinosaur in the foreground.  

The first Teratophoneus fossils that were found were of a sub adult and it was probably about 20 feet long and weighed around 1,500 lbs.  That is about 6 meters and 680 kg.  So we are not sure of how big a full grown one was.  A couple of years ago a fossil of another Teratophoneus was found in Southern Utah in the Kaiparowits Plateau at the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  .  .  and the fossil was airlifted to the Utah Museum of Natural History.  I do not know if it was an adult.  Maybe the paleontologists there DO know a better estimate of adult size.  

The full scientific name of this dino is Teratophoneus curriei.  The Genus name is from Greek.  Teras means monster and phoneus means murderer.   So this animal was a monster murderer.  The species name is after the famous paleontologist Phillip Currie.  He is the curator at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Alberta, Canada.  Dr. Brooks Britt, who helped discover and name the animal was once a student of Dr. Currie. 

 IN FACT. . . the University of Alberta offers some great courses on Paleontology via Coursera.  So in that sense I also was a student of Dr. Currie.  I highly recommend their online Coursera classes.  I took Palenotology:  Dino 101 Dinosaur Paleobiology,    Paleontology:  Theropod Dinosaurs and the Evolution of Birds,       Paleontolgy: Ancient Marine Reptiles    and Paleontology Early Vertebrate Evolution. 

Teratophoneus and Young

This is an older drawing so it will be further up on the printable drawings lists.  It is based on the idea that perhaps all the Tyrannosaurs possibly had proto-feathers.   The new drawing up top is found by clicking on either   All Printables   or   Paleontology   buttons and scrolling down to the bottom.  

T. rex vs. Didelphodon