#teratophoneus

[stromuprisahat]

[randomanimaloftheday]

Day 199#: Teratophoneus curriei

Merry day twenty-eight of Dino-December! Today's animal of the day is Teratophoneus curriei!

Image credit: Creative Beast Studio

This species of mid-sized tyrannosaurid lived during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Utah. The original holotype specimen was found in the Kaiparowits Formation and was pretty fragmentary, consisting of bits of a broken skull and a few other pieces of bone. This individual is believed to have been a subadult and was around 20 ft long when it died. However, since the animal probably wasn't fully grown at the time of its death, it's likely that the maximum size of Teratophoneus was a bit larger, at around 26 ft long. The skull of Teratophoneus is around 23% shorter in proportion to closely related dinosaurs like Albertosaurus and was also slightly deeper. It's theorized that this may have allowed Teratophoneus to have stronger jaw muscles, giving it a strong bite force. But that's just speculation.

Image credit: cisiopurple on DeviantArt

Since the discovery of the holotype specimen in 2008, several more Teratophoneus specimens have been discovered. One of these fossils is a bonebed discovered in 2021 that's made up of around 4 or 5 individuals ranging in age from 4 to 22 years old. Since these dinosaurs all likely died at the same time, probably due to a flashflood, this seems to suggest that Teratophoneus may have lived and hunted in family groups. This isn't the first species of tyrannosaur found in such a group, with Albertosaurus and Daspletosaurus also being found in similar groupings. It's possible that these individuals weren't actually living together and just so happened to end up in the same general location after they died. For example, if they had all been washed to the same place by the aforementioned flashflood. But since this has happened multiple times for multiple different species/genera of tyrannosaurs, the theory that at least the smaller species of tyrannosaurids hunted in packs is looking more and more likely.

Image credit: Sergey Krasovskiy

The genus name Teratophoneus is Greek for "murderous monster" since, while it wasn't the largest tyrannosaur around, this dinosaur was still likely a ferocious predator. Meanwhile, its species name honors paleontologist Philip J. Currie, who was not one of the paleontologists to discover this species. That credit goes to Thomas Carr, Thomas Williamson, Brooks Britt, and Ken Stadtman, who must all be fans of Currie. It would make sense since apparently, he was one of Michael Crichton's inspirations for the character Alan Grant in his novel, Jurassic Park. Of course, he's also made a ton of contributions to the field of paleontology, including naming/describing a bunch of new species and even debunking some paleontological scams and hoaxes.

Image credit: Universal Studios (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom)

Photo credit: StudioADI

Speaking of the Jurassic Park franchise, Teratophoneus was actually planned to appear in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, but was replaced by Allosaurus. However, it does make a cameo as a carcass prop, so I guess it's technically canon.

[thysannia]

#Hadvent Day 2

Starting Off Small

Gazing upon the skull of this land's apex predator, this young Parasaurolophus knows little of the dangers of its world and how lucky it must be to survive its first year.

I ended up putting a lot more time and effort into this piece than I initially intended, hence why it's a little bit late, but I'm really proud of how it turned out. I'll stick to much quicker sketches for the next few days to catch my breath, but I'm hoping to make a couple more pieces like this down the line :3

[maple-altispinax23]

Oh… the teratophoneins… what a theropod group…

Decided to include every member ever included within this albeit recent and occasionally controversial group, including our fragmentary, and in the case of one species, shittily described labocania

[fishsfailureson]

Just a WIP of something I'm working on. All I need to do now is the shading.

(btw I have art requests open rn)

[the-gift-of-dinosaurs]

Teratophoneus curriei These are a series of photos I took of the display cast at BYU (where the fossils were researched and described) for photogrammetry.

[wildandmoody]

Fang on the beach! I based her on the smaller tyrannosaur Teratophoneus, rather than Tyrannosaurus that she’s meant to be on the show.

[si-nequal-is]

Talos mobbing resting Teratophoneus.