University of Kansas paleontologists searching in Hell Creek, Montana, will complete what has been an eight-year excavation process of a juvenile tyrannosaur fossil.
Few juvenile tyrannosaur specimens have ever been recovered, exciting researchers who hope to learn more evolutionary relationships and about the lifestyle of the young dinosaurs.
Well preserved in an ancient river bed, the fossilized remains found by the KU team include flat, blade-like teeth, which provide clues of potential differences in the diet of the adult and juvenile dinosaurs.
"So we think, possibly, that they went after prey items that adult T-Rex couldn't go after; things that were fast for an adult that possibly the juvenile could capture because they have long legs and these long teeth," Dr. David Burnham told KCUR's Up To Date.
"So I think they were possibly going after feathered dinosaurs that were fast runners, too quick for the adults."
- Dr. David Burnham, preparator of vertebrate paleontology, KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum
- Josephy Tierny, assistant field paleontologist
