T Rex To Reveal Itself At The Smithsonian - via D R Shoop

This week, scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History will start unpacking some rare and precious cargo. It's something the Smithsonian has never had before — a nearly complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Most people don't know it, but the T rex that's standing tall in the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC, is a fake — a cast, a copy of the bones. It's an accurate replica, but for decades the Smithsonian has coveted a real skeleton of a T rex — the charismatic, 30-foot-long beast that's not only deliciously frightening to contemplate, but fascinating to scientists.

How did such an animal grow so large? How fast did it run? Was it a predator or a scavenger?

Now, courtesy of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, they've got one.

On a recent day, the Bozeman museum's director, Shelley McKamey, shows off a cast of the T rex's skull on exhibit. The skull is more than four feet long, almost as high, and its gaping maw could bite a cow in half.

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Mini Arctic T. Rex Relative Discovered

By Stephanie Pappas, Senior Writer | March 13, 2014 02:06pm ET

A miniature cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex once roamed the Arctic, a new fossil discovery reveals.

The new tyrannosaur (Nanuqsaurus hoglundi) had a skull length of between 23 and 27 inches (60 to 70 centimeters) when full-grown. In comparison, an adult T. rex boasted a skull about 60 inches (150 cm) long — that's a whopping 5 feet (1.5 meters).

"The 'pygmy tyrannosaur' alone is really cool because it tells us something about what the environment was like in the ancient Arctic," study researcher Anthony Fiorillo of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, said. "But what makes this discovery even more exciting is that Nanuqsaurus hoglundi also tells us about the biological richness of the ancient polar world during a time when the Earth was very warm compared to today."

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Dinosaur skeleton in custody battle may be 'Frankenstein amalgam'

A 70-million-year-old dinosaur at the center of an international fossil custody battle is a Frankenstein-like amalgam of parts of several creatures, a Manhattan federal court was told on Wednesday.

The claim - which federal prosecutors challenged - could complicate the U.S. government's forfeiture case against a Florida fossil dealer who reconstructed tyrannosaurus bataar bones and sold the piece at auction in May for $1.05 million. Auction marketing material for the skeleton implies that it is a reconstruction of a single creature.

In June, U.S. officials seized the eight-foot-tall (2.4-metre tall), 24-foot-long (7.3-metre long), partially-reconstructed cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex, after Mongolia demanded its return on suspicion that it was smuggled out of the Gobi desert.

On Wednesday, Michael McCullough, an attorney representing Florida commercial paleontologist Eric Prokopi said that about half the reconstruction - fossilized bones welded onto a metal frame - came from one creature and the other half from "at least two, most likely many" creatures.


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Tree Rex: 'Dinosaur' discovered in Norfolk (via Lindsay Selby)

Stalking the country 65 million years after dying out, this Tyrannosaurus Rex has got locals on the run.

Spike Malin, 50, discovered the 35ft ash tree covered in ivy while out waling in Alby, Norfolk, and quickly shot it - with his camera.

The property manager and his wife Debbie, 48, were left stunned after stumbling across the tree.

The huge plant has been nicknamed “Tree-Rex” due to its likeness to T Rex’s green skin.

Over dozens of years, the tree has been battered by high winds that have formed the branches into the shape of the prehistoric lizard. 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/dinosaur-discovered-in-norfolk-or-at-least-a-tree-755249