The Tyrannosaurus Rex Origin Story May Not Have Started in North America

Paleontologists have lengthy regarded as Tyrannosaurus rex a North American reptile, however a learn about now claims that the king of the dinosaurs’ predecessor hailed from the Far East.

The cousin megaraptors most likely lumbered from one continent to any other by way of land bridge greater than 70 million years in the past — in all probability in an try to beat the warmth, in keeping with an article within the magazine Royal Society Open Science. The discovering is doubtlessly arguable, as a result of paleontologists have lengthy debated T. rex’s origins.

Finding T. rex‘s Origin

To higher perceive megaraptor mobility, the researchers created mathematical fashions drawing at the age and site of fossils, the dinosaur evolutionary tree, and local weather data. They additionally accounted for gaps within the fossil report — necessary as a result of fairly few megaraptors had been recognized in Asia, whilst about 30 T. rex fossils had been found out in North America.

“Our modelling suggests the ‘grandparents’ of T. rex likely came to North America from Asia, crossing the Bering Strait between what is now Siberia and Alaska,” Cassius Morrison, a graduate pupil at University College London and an creator of the paper, stated in a press unencumber. “This is in keeping with previous analysis discovering that the T. rex used to be extra carefully associated with Asian cousins such because the Tarbosaurus than to North American kinfolk akin to Daspletosaurus.”

Read More: Is the T. Rex Three Different Species?

Dinosaur Migration

The researchers connect dinosaur migration with climate change. They suspect that when the temperature peaked 92 million years ago, megaraptors went on the move. The researchers hypothesize that those dinosaurs were better suited to colder climates, maybe because they were covered in feathers or possessed a warm-blooded body.

However, that conclusion may not be universally accepted. The provenance of T. rex has, at times, provoked contentious debates within paleontology. For instance, a study in 2024 claimed that T. rex relative Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis, which was found in New Mexico, predated T. rex by 3 million to 5 million years.

The authors of that study say those findings support North American ancestry for T. rex. The authors of the new paper, however, disagree, saying that the T. mcraeensis fossil was dated incorrectly.

Until more megaraptor fossils are discovered outside North America, T. rex’s origin story may remain a mystery.

Read More: The T. Rex Was More Like a Smart Crocodile, Instead of a Bright Baboon

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Before becoming a member of Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, that specialize in U.S. existence science coverage and world clinical occupation problems. He started his occupation in newspapers, however switched to clinical magazines. His paintings has seemed in publications together with Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.