A tiny mystery dinosaur from New Mexico is officially T. rex’s cousin
It took decades to ID the 92-million-year-old tyrannosaur, newly named Suskityrannus hazelae
More than 20 years ago, paleontologists unearthed two partial skeletons of a mysterious dinosaur species in New Mexico. This creature, which lived about 92 million years ago, bore some resemblance to giant tyrannosaurs that reigned from about 80 million to 66 million years ago. One was even found with what could have been a partly digested lizard skull. But the dino was so tiny — only about a meter tall at the hip — it left scientists to wonder where it fit in.
“There was enough of a skeleton to be super intriguing, but not enough to nail it down,” says Sterling Nesbitt, a paleontologist at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg who dug up one of the fossils.