🦖 New T. Rex Details Imminent
Andrew Rossi at Cowboy State Daily has some exiting news for anyone interested in dinosaurs:
"Rex Junior" is a partial but perfectly preserved Tyrannosaurus skeleton found on the Zerbst Ranch in eastern Wyoming. A paleontologist said that the "extraordinary specimen" could rewrite 100 years of knowledge about how the T. rex looked.
[...]
Many details on Rex Junior are still secret, pending publication, but Sereno said this specimen from the newly discovered "mummy zone" will redefine what we know about T. rex, inside and out.
“All I’ll say is we don't see scales,” he said.
The discoveries aren't just skin deep, though:
The first big revelation was the articulated right arm. Every bone was there, from the long, thin scapula to the very tips of the claws, perfectly articulated as they would have been when Rex Junior was alive.
“It was the only complete T. rex hand and forearm ever found,” Sereno said. “Every single bone, in place outside of the ribcage. I was totally shocked.”
And there's more:
Despite the inclination of generations of paleontologists to make T. rex barrel-chested, the articulated shoulders and wishbone of Rex Junior revealed something different.
“This specimen shows the furcula sits right in between on the crest of the coracoids, connected to the scapulae, just like it does in a modern bird,” Sereno said. “Everything joins together at the midline.”
That articulation makes the chest of T. rex much slimmer.
The research should be published early next year. Something to look forward to!