#just tyrant things

[archosaurophilia]

Hahaaaa early-morning tyrants

Dryptosaurus aquilunguis (née Laelaps) has been relegated to the perhaps unfortunate status of being a source of dinosaur trivia and not much else. It was among the first North American dinosaurs, described by Cope in 1866 as Laelaps. This name was found to be preoccupied by a bug (an unfortunate trend in the history of dinosaur palaeontology), and so Cope's arch-rival Othniel Charles Marsh swooped in to coin a new generic name for the theropod, which briefly became a sort of wastebasket taxon for a number of North American theropod material.

For a long time primarily noted only for its naming debacle and status as the only predatory dinosaur of the eastern United States, its importance in the tyrannosaur family tree has been re-evaluated with the description of the related Appalachiosaurus in 2005. Dryptosaurus lived in the Maastrichtian stage of the Upper Cretaceous, 67 Ma at the same time that its distant cousin Tyrannosaurus was establishing itself as the arch-predator of the west.

Dryptosaurus is preserved in what were once coastal, estuarine lowlands, along with Hadrosaurus, the first discovery of what would prove to be a widespread and diverse group of herbivorous dinosaurs.

[archosaurophilia]

When people tell me that T. rex can't be scary if it isn't restored as scaly, I laugh in their faces.

(Tyrannosaurus rex by John Conway)

[archosaurophilia]

The Tyrannosaurus and the Triceratops, from the 1992 documentary "The Dinosaurs! Flesh on the Bones".

For my own part, I first saw this animation on a 1993 Windows interactive dinosaurs CD-ROM, along with the famous Phil Tippett short "Prehistoric Beast".

That one always scared the shit out of me.

[archosaurophilia]

A raptor learns the hard way to dread that most fearful of all the tyrant dinosaurs, the Western kingbird (Tyrannus verticalis)

Original photo from The Ojai Rambler

[archosaurophilia]

Australovenator wintonensis was one of a theropod clade known as Megaraptora, which has been at the center of a number of taxonomic realignments in the past couple years. Current analyses place them within Tyrannosauroidea, so although the matter is far from resolved; here they are.

Australovenator first achieved notoriety (albeit not in its own guise) as the 'Polar/Dwarf Allosaur' of Walking With Dinosaurs. Known only from ankle material at the time, it wasn't until further analyses and the description of more material that it was found to be entirely distinct from the allosaurid lineage. It is part of a radiation within the megaraptoran clade which includes the other Australian megaraptoran Rapator and the Japanese Fukuiraptor. The holotype was popularly nicknamed 'Banjo', after Australian folk lyricist Banjo Paterson, the author of "Waltzing Matilda".

A gracile carnivore, Australovenator seems to have measured in at about 20 feet (6 meters) in length, its most obvious means of hunting being the large claws on each hand. Its fossils are known from the Aptian-Cenomanian Winton Formation, which represents a river delta/estuarine environment at the extremity of what then would have been the great inland Eromanga Sea.

[archosaurophilia]

#JustTyrantThings

Introducing "Just Tyrant Things", a full week (that's a full 168 hours for those of you playing at home) of nothing but posts on tyrannosauroids of all kinds, as a sort of 'tyrannosaur appreciation week'. Starting this evening, here on Archosaurophilia!