Daspletosaurus
Daspletosaurus torosus
Pronounced:
dass-Plee-toe-Saw-rus
Diet:
Carnivore (Meat-Eater)
Name Means:
"Frightful Lizard"
Length:
30 feet (9 m)
Height:
10 feet (3 m)
Weight:
3 tons (2,700 kilos)
Time:
Late Cretaceous - 76 MYA
Fossil remains for this Dinosaur have been found in North America
Daspletosaurus is a
good example of the
research methods used by
scientists over many
years whereby they build
on each other's
discoveries to form a
conclusion about a
dinosaur. Daspletosaurus
was first discovered in
1921 by Charles
Sternberg. These partial
remains were thought by
Sternberg to be a
dinosaur he called
Gorgosaurus Later
discoveries, however,
added more pieces to the
puzzle, and almost 50
years after the first
discovery, Dr. Dale
Russel was able to
determine that this
dinosaur was both a new
species and genus, which
he called
Daspletosaurus. This
dinosaur is an early
member of the
tyrannosaur family and
looks a great deal like
a smaller version of T.
rex.
At first, some scientists argued
that Daspletosaurus was a larger
more adult version of Albertosaurus
Subsequent study, however, has
proved otherwise. It was a typical
tyrannosaur, with shorter,
two-fingered front limbs. It was
more robust than Albertosaurus
its contemporary cousin, and it is
speculated that it was better suited
to hunting the slower horned
dinosaurs, thus leaving the faster
hadrosaurs to the lighter and
speedier Albertosaurus. |
