In the name of the Empire
In March 2016, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published an article titled "New tyrannosaur from the mid-Cretaceous of Uzbekistan's mid-Cretaceous evolution of giant body sizes and The paper advanced senses in tyrant dinosaurs) named a member of the Tyrannosaurus family, Timurlengia.
The Timurid Empire, once a great empire centered on Central Asia
The genus name Timurlengia comes from the Tamerlane Empire, which flourished in Central Asia in the 14th century. The type name of Tamerlane is Timurlengia euotica, and the species name euotica comes from the larger inner ear structure in the fossil.
60+10 years of twists and turns
In 1944, the Red Army was marching forward
Fossils of Tamerlane were found in Uzbekistan in the Bissekty Formation formation. In fact, as early as 1944, Soviet investigators found fossil materials of tyrannosaurs here (I am curious, in the middle of World War II, the Soviet government would send people to investigate paleontological fossils, which is obviously not their style).
Discover the site of Tamerlane, located in the interior of central Asia
Sixty years later, in 2004, a paleontological expedition found a fragment of a skull at the same site that may have been used to fix neck muscles and protect the brain and ear canals, a fossil later preserved in a cardboard box in a warehouse at the Institute of Zoology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In a cardboard box at the Institute of Zoology, a new species of Brusat was turned over
Ten years later, in 2014, Stephen Louis Brusatte, an expert on tyrannosaurs at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, visited the Institute of Zoology and immediately determined that it belonged to an unknown tyrannosaur dinosaur when he saw the fossils in the cardboard box in the storeroom. Soon, a joint team of paleontologists from Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States began to study the dinosaur, and in addition to the orthotype specimen (number zinph 1146/16), paleontologists found 16 fossil specimens from different individuals, including mandibles, square bones, tooth bones, cervical vertebrae, dorsal vertebrae, tail vertebrae, claws, etc.
Size like a horse
A picture tells you of a fossil belonging to Tamerlane that has been found, with a scale measure next to it referring to body length
In the Tyrannosaurus family, Tamerlane was small, with a body length of 3 to 4 meters and a weight of between 170 and 270 kg, about the size of a horse. Tamerlane already possessed the basic appearance characteristics of the late Tyrannosaurus rex, with a large and long head and two rows of sharp teeth that curved backwards in its mouth. Tamerlane had a curved neck, a thinner body, and a tail behind it. Like Tyrannosaurus, Tamerlane had short forelimbs, only two fingers on its hands, and long and powerful hind limbs. Although the restoration depicts Tamerlane as a hairy animal, it is unknown whether it grew hairy or not.
Not very big
The discovery of Tamerlane, the KyzylQum Desert
As mentioned earlier, the fossils of Tamerlane were found in the Baskti Formation formation, located in the Kyzyl Kumdesert Desert in present-day Uzbekistan. The Baskti Formation has a chronological span from the Toulon to the Konyas order, which is 90 million to 85 million years ago, which belongs to the beginning of the Late Cretaceous.
Ancient bird-like dragons living with Tamerlane
Don't look at the Bascoti Formation formation, which today is a desert located inland from the mainland, which was covered by a shallow sea 90 million years ago, which is the retreating Tethys Sea. Based on the fossils found, the Bascoti formation represents a mixture of marine, brackish water, freshwater and terrestrial fauna, including arthropods, molluscs, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs include Amtosaurus, Bissektipelta, Gilmoreosaurus, Levnesovia, Turanoceratops, Archaeornithomimus, Asian Cynognathasia, and Archaeornithomimus. Euronychodon, Itemirus, Kuszholia.
Judging from the animals currently found in the Baskti Formation formation, Tamerlane was the largest predator and the overlord of the time.
The articulation of the Overlord
Brussat is showing a restored picture of Tamerlane's dragon at the press conference
The discovery of Tamerlane is of great significance, and from the fossil material, there is a clear time fault between the superfamily Tyrannosaurus and the family Tyrannosaurus: 100 million years ago to 80 million years ago. The discovery of Tamerlane, which put an end to this 20-million-year-old fault, helps us understand what really happened between those 20 million years, allowing Tyrannosaurus to evolve from second-rate predators to top predators.
CT scan of the inner ear bone of Tamerlane dragon
By scanning the fossil skulls found using CT technology, paleontologists found that Tamerlanes already possessed the brain and inner ear characteristics of later tyrannosaurs. That is to say, before the size of the tyrannosaurs began to be larger, they were ready for the mind and senses, and it was really the brain first. The discovery of Tamerlane proved that the reason why the tyrannosaurs were able to successfully ascend to the throne of the king in the late Cretaceous was that they had seized their intellectual advantage early.
Position of Tamerlane in the Tyrannosaurus EvolutionAry Tree
Although Tamerlane revealed the evolutionary mystery of the Tyrannosaurus rex, it was not a direct ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, and its position in the family was in the more advanced position of the Tyrannosaurus superfamily, but it did not belong to the later large tyrannosaur family.
Author: Jiang's Little Thief Dragon (Image from the Internet)
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