Thanatotheristes, a new North American tyrannosaurine!

[suspsy]

Meet Thanatotheristes degrootorum, an earlier cousin of Daspletosaurus!

Sorry, this paper is a pay one, but it will probably get reported in the popular media soon! Or perhaps @Halichoeres is able to access it for us in the mean time?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667119303611

[MLMjp]

Nice!

What does its name mean?

[suspsy]

Nice!

What does its name mean?

ETYMOLOGY: From Thanatos, the Greek god of and embodiment of death, and theristes (Greek), one who reaps or harvests, a reaper. The specific name, degrootorum, is in honor of John and Sandra De Groot of Hays, Alberta, who discovered the holotype specimen and have been supportive of paleontological research in the area.[/b]

Needless to say, that is a really cool name. Thanatotheristes was found in the Foremost Formation in southern Alberta, which means that if it gets included in the BotM Tyrannosaur series (here's hoping!), the ceratopsian to pit it up against would be Xenoceratops.

[E.D.G.E. (PainterRex)]

Meet Thanatotheristes degrootorum, an earlier cousin of Daspletosaurus!

Sorry, this paper is a pay one, but it will probably get reported in the popular media soon! Or perhaps @Halichoeres is able to access it for us in the mean time?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667119303611

I could download it for free

[Loon]

ETYMOLOGY: From Thanatos, the Greek god of and embodiment of death, and theristes (Greek), one who reaps or harvests, a reaper. The specific name, degrootorum, is in honor of John and Sandra De Groot of Hays, Alberta, who discovered the holotype specimen and have been supportive of paleontological research in the area.

And here I was thinking this was some Marvel thing.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Another one?

Does anyone know whether this one has a decent amount of remains assigned to it?

[suspsy]

Another one?

Does anyone know whether this one has a decent amount of remains assigned to it?

Only a partial skull for the time being, but there's enough material, combined with the age of the strata, to identify it as a new species. It's more than what we have for Dynamoterror and Nanuqsaurus:

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/1220482545038450688

[CityRaptor]

ETYMOLOGY: From Thanatos, the Greek god of and embodiment of death, and theristes (Greek), one who reaps or harvests, a reaper. The specific name, degrootorum, is in honor of John and Sandra De Groot of Hays, Alberta, who discovered the holotype specimen and have been supportive of paleontological research in the area.

And here I was thinking this was some Marvel thing.

Nah, Thanos was already done:
http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=7436.0

[PrimevalRaptor]

Interesting find and while I do like the ring of the name, I gotta wonder why we gotta give every tyrannosaur a name like "Super Death Killer Lizard", at this point it seems like a weird tradition lmao

[CityRaptor]

Just waiting for Killmaster and Murderking.

[Loon]

Here's one Daemonosaurus mortemii. Loosely translates to "Demon Lizard of Death", but it's Latin, so it sounds smarter.

[suspsy]

Just waiting for Killmaster and Murderking.

If you're going to name a tyrannosaurid after a Transformer, then it's got to be named Grimlockosaurus holtzi.

[Neosodon]

Has to be the nerdiest sounding Tyrannosaur name. I can imagine someone saying "That's not a T. rex, that's a Thanatotheristes."

[Halichoeres]

If you gave a maladjusted twelve year old a dictionary of Greek combining forms, this is the name you would get. Thankfully, it seems pretty likely that this and Dynamoterror will be synonymized at some point, but probably not before we get a bunch of toys of these fairly fragmentary animals.

I do have the pdf because my workplace subscribes to Cretaceous Research, so if anybody wants the description please feel free to pm me your email address. I wouldn't want to have sullied my hard drive for nothing.

[Gwangi]

It's like they're all trying to come up with an awsomebro name that will somehow top Tyrannosaurus rex. They always fail.

[MLMjp]

It's like they're all trying to come up with an awsomebro name that will somehow top Tyrannosaurus rex. They always fail.

Now that you mention it, It does seem like it. But yeah, nothing sounds, or will sound better that Tyrannosaurus rex.

[suspsy]

It's like they're all trying to come up with an awsomebro name that will somehow top Tyrannosaurus rex. They always fail.

Now that you mention it, It does seem like it. But yeah, nothing sounds, or will sound better that Tyrannosaurus rex.

It's like trying to come up with a new Star Wars villain with a scarier mask than Darth Vader's.

[stargatedalek]

I have to say, I mind Thanos and even Thanatotheristes a lot less than Dynamoterror! Thanos was at least a halfway clever name for an abelisaur given the forelimb stature, but Dynamoterror is pure flash, nothing of substance there at all.

And let's not pretend we don't get similarly obnoxious names with the conventional naming formulas, looking at you Saurophaganax.

The elephant in the room here is the reshaping of Tyrannosaurid phylogeny, not that it doesn't make complete sense. Everything was just way to linear before.

[suspsy]

New article from the Smithsonian:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/newly-discovered-tyrannosaur-was-key-rise-giant-meat-eaters-180974156/

[austrosaurus]

Thankfully, it seems pretty likely that this and Dynamoterror will be synonymized at some point

I don't see any reason why Thanatotheristes would get synonymised with Dynamoterror, considering there's very little overlap of material, they fall relatively far away from each other in the phylogenetic analysis, and the chronological and geographical distance between them. Even if there were grounds for synonymisation, I don't know why that's something to be thankful for, or have any strong emotion either way. Plenty of species are named for less than stellar material (e.g. Bajadasaurus, 90% of titanosaurs); should we advocate for their removal from the scientific record because of their poor remains even though what is known is diagnostic? Plenty of species have kind of silly names (e.g. Bonatitan, Kaijutitan); should we advocate for the removal of these species from the scientific record as well for not conforming to traditional expectations and sensibilities?