Friday, March 18, 2016

A juvenile Tyrannosaurus braincase?

 

An exciting development (maybe) this week for #FossilFriday. On the left is a braincase fragment from one of our new 2015 sites. On the right is the braincase of Timurlengia, a small tyrannosaur from Uzbekistan described this week by Brusatte et al.. Now, this photo is of the inside of the braincase, and I was struck by the similarity to our specimen. Could we have a (juvenile) tyrannosaur skull coming out of our site? When we found it we realized it was a braincase of course, and it is a bit too gracile to be from an ornithischian (we think), but there are not too many specimens to compare it to.

It's only a fragment I know, but that's how you find these important sites: ID the frags and dig deeper! (besides, this site already has a juvie pachy and thescelosaur...)

Opinions welcomed!

Hell Creek Formation. American Prairie Reserve. Montana.