History UsefulNotes / PrehistoricLifeLargeTheropods

* In 2012, a new and important find about the tyrannosaur lineage came to light: ''Yutyrannus'' (lit. "feathered tyrant": Yu = "feathered dragon" in Chinese, tyrannus = "tyrant" in Latin) from the Early Cretaceous of China. Iy was Proceratosaurid, an early group of tyrannosauroids that had three fingers and a much more gracile body-type. From the same Liaoning site in which other much smaller feathered dinosaurs have been found, ''Yutyrannus'' was much bigger than them (30-foot long, only slightly smaller than ''Tarbosaurus'') - but it too bears a complete covering of feathers. This suggests that even large true tyrannosauroids were feathered, not just their smaller ancestors. Despite its size ''Yutyrannus'' was very basal among tyrannosauroids, believed related with the 9-foot ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Guanlong]]'' and thus more distantly related with true tyrannosaurids than ''Dryptosaurus'' and ''Appalachiosaurus'' were. In 2015, the "feathered tyrant" made its first appearance in mainstream media by playing a major antagonist in [[''[[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTimeXIVJourneyOfTheBrave The Land Before Time 14''. It may be on its way to becoming a Stock Dinosaur in the near future.

Of course the most portrayed large predatory theropods in documentary media are the stock ones: the seven classic "carnosaurs" above, already common in dino-books since TheEighties or even before, plus ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Carnotaurus]]'' & ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Giganotosaurus]]'' that joined them in TheNineties, when the word "carnosaur" had already assumed its current meaning. Other big meat-eaters, however, have also been common sights. Among the North-American ones, it's especially common the "small" tyrannosaur ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Albertosaurus]]'' -- or alternatively ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Gorgosaurus]]'' or ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Daspletosaurus]]''. Though less-frequent, the sail-backed allosaur ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Acrocanthosaurus]]'' can appear in Early Cretaceous reconstructions, and ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Torvosaurus]]'' in the Late Jurassic ones. The tyrannosauroid ''Dryptosaurus'' is noted for a painting made by Charles Knight at the early 1900.

* Not all tyrannosaur'''o'''ids were tyrannosaurids, remember this. Basal tyrannosauroids were often very different animals: smaller, slenderer, with ''three fingered hands''. Not exactly ''T. rex''es… only their skull structure was analogue to the tyrannosaurids. The most long-standing basal tyrannosauroid is ''Dryptosaurus aquilunguis'' ("eagle-clawed wounding lizard"), the first theropod discovered in North America from not-only-teeth, in 1866, before the Bone Wars. Because of its apparently untyrannosauroidian nature and scant remains, ''Dryptosaurus'' was long considered a hard-to-classify theropod (for example, a late-surviving megalosaur). After the discovery of North American forms like ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachiosaurus Appalachiosaurus]]'' ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin from the Appalachian mountains]]), ''Dryptosaurus'' has consistently been placed in the tyrannosauroid realm. However, it was more slender than true tyrannosaurs, and we don’t know if it had two- or three-fingered hands (they have never been found, apart from some isolated phalanxes). ''Dryptosaurus'' has also the distinction to be one of the few dinosaurs discovered in eastern USA, contrary to the quasi-totality of North American dinosaurs. Edward Cope called it "Laelaps", from a mythical dog turned into stone while jumping; Othniel Marsh, however, renamed it with its current name. ''Dryptosaurus'' was also the dinosaur ever depicted by the famous paleo-artist Charles Knight (when the dinosaur was still called “Laelaps”), with two individual fighting and one jumping over the other.

* Over the decades, there have been multiple tyrannosaurid specimens coined as a species of ''T. rex'', with the biggest examples arguably being ''Tarbosaurus'' and ''Daspletosaurus''. Some even believed that ''Daspletosaurus'' evolved into ''T. rex'' through anagenesis (which is a controversial concept in biology). However, with discoveries of tyrannosaurids more similar to ''T. rex'' like ''Lythronax'', ''Teratophoneus'' and ''Bistahieversor'', this theory came into question. This led to some analysts coming to the conclusion that ''Daspletosaurus'' was much more basal than previously thought, and that its superficial similarities to ''T. rex'' were a result of convergent evolution (due to them living in very similar niches). With ''Tarbosaurus'', things are a little more complicated. While ''Tarbosaurus'' was ''T. rex's'' closest relative, they still had too many skeletal differences to be considered the same genus.