'Pinocchio rex' found in China

Not even donkey ears could make this particular “Pinocchio” less threatening.

 

Existing in the Late Cretaceous era – around 66 million years ago – the long-snouted carnivore Qianzhousaurus sinensis prowled the landscape of ancient Asia, likely developing the same fearsome reputation possessed by its more well-known “cousin,” Tyrannosaurus rex.

 

 

Thanks to its long, narrow teeth and notably elongated skull, Q. sinensis earned the nickname “Pinocchio rex.” The dinosaur is said to have been around 9 meters in length, with a weight of close to 800 kilograms.

By comparison, T. rex had an approximate length of 13 meters, and possessed thicker teeth and a more powerful jaw than this possibly fleet-footed predator.

 

“This is a different breed of tyrannosaur: It has the familiar toothy grin of T. rex, but its snout was much longer and it had a row of horns on its nose,” said Dr Steve Brusatte, Chancellor's Fellow in Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of the study. According to Dr Brusatte, Q. sinensis “might have looked a little comical, but it would have been as deadly as any other tyrannosaur, and maybe even a little faster and stealthier. “

 

Experts believe that the prehistoric meat-eater may have targeted smaller prey due to its evolutionary features, as the deeper snouts of bigger predators were more suited for large targets.

 

On the nose, after all

 

Before the surprisingly intact remains of Q. sinensis were discovered at a construction site in Ganzhou in southern China, only two other fossilized long-snouted tyrannosaurs of the Alioramus genus had been unearthed, both of which were juveniles.

 

Scientists were initially unsure about whether the two juveniles could be classified under a separate branch in the tyrannosaur family tree; however, the near-adult specimen of Q. sinensis serves as convincing proof that these long-snouted predators really did exist. Ongoing excavations in Asia are expected to reveal more additions to the new tyrannosaur group.

 

“Along with Alioramus from Mongolia, it shows that the long-snouted tyrannosaurids were widely distributed in Asia,” says study co-author Prof. Junchang Lü, from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences's Institute of Geology. “Although we are only starting to learn about them, the long-snouted tyrannosaurs were apparently one of the main groups of predatory dinosaurs in Asia.”

 

The researchers' findings were published online in Nature. — TJD, GMA News