Scientists from the Dinosaur Palaeobiology at Canada’s University of Calgary has discovered a new species of dinosaur closely related to Tyrannosaurus rex that strode the plain of North America some 80 million years ago.
- The new species named Thanatotheristes degrootorum – Greek for “Reaper of Death” – is thought to be the oldest member of the T. rex family yet discovered in northern North America, and would have grown to around eight metres (26 feet) in length.
- The nickname of this species is Thanatos.
- The specimen was discovered by Jared Voris, a PhD student at Calgary, and is the first new tyrannosaur species found for 50 years in Canada.
- The 79-million-year-old fossil that the researchers have found is the oldest tyrannosaur known from northern North America.
