A skull belonging to an ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex has been unearthed in Uzbekistan, shedding light on how the dinosaur came to be one of the most fearsome predators to walk the earth.
The remains of the horse-sized creature, named Timurlengia euotica, reveal it had an advanced brain and hearing system, which may hold the key to understanding how the T-rex rose to such a dominant position in the food chain.
It was discovered by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, along with colleagues from the US and Russia.
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"We have a totally new species of dinosaur," lead researcher Dr Stephen Brusatte told the BBC. "It's one of the very closest cousins of T-rex, but a lot smaller – about the size of a horse - and it comes from the middle part of the Cretaceous period, a point where we have a huge gap in the fossil record."
Timurlengia is thought to have lived approximately 90 million years ago, was probably covered in feathers, grew to a maximum size of around nine feet and weighed about 600lbs. By comparison, T-rex grew to about 40ft in length and weighed up to seven tons.
"The braincase and inner ear indicate that the small carnivore had a keen sense of hearing and excellent eyesight that would characterise the giant tyrannosaurs that came later," the Smithsonian magazine says.
The find adds to scientists' understanding of dinosaur development, suggesting "that T-rex and its closest relatives did not develop their heightened senses after reaching gigantic proportions, but instead beefed up later on", says The Guardian.
