Tyrannosaurs lived in the Southern Hemisphere, too
Australian fossils suggest the kin of T. rex dispersed globally
By Sid Perkins
Paleontologists digging in Australia’s aptly named Dinosaur Cove have unearthed the first known fossils of a tyrannosaur from the Southern Hemisphere.
The fossils include the remains of just one 30-centimeter-long bone from the creature’s pelvic girdle, but certain features of that bone are seen only in tyrannosaurs, says Roger B.J. Benson and his colleagues report in the March 26 Science. Previously, all known fossils of the tyrannosaur lineage have been unearthed in the Northern Hemisphere.
The size and proportions of the pelvic bone suggest that the dinosaur, which lived around 110 million years ago, was approximately the size of an adult human and tipped the scales at around 80 kilograms. That’s around the same size as Raptorex, a tyrannosaur that lived in what is now China at about the same time.