Newly discovered ‘Dragon Prince’ dinosaur rewrites history of T.rex
12 June 2025, 09:14 | Updated: 12 June 2025, 09:48
A newly discovered dinosaur, pegged as T.rex's 'tiny cousin', has led to scientists reconsidering the creature's history.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Two partial skeletons of a new dinosaur have been discovered, which is believed to be a crucial ancestor of the tyrannosaurus rex (T.rex).
The skeletons were first discovered in Mongolia back in the early 1970s.
They were initially assigned to an existing species, known as Alectrosaurus, but when PhD student Jared Voris, who led the research with Professor Zelenitsky of the University of Calgary in Canada, examined them, he identified the yrannosaur-like features that set it apart.
Read more: ‘Significant challenges’ in use of AI within UK screen sector
The new dinosaur is named Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which translates to 'Dragon Prince' in Mongolian, and lived about 86 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period.
Scientists have discovered that the Khankhuuluu predates the tyrannosaurus by around 20 million years.
The mid-sized dinosaur, measuring about 13 feet in length and weighing roughly 1,600 pounds, walked on two legs and possessed a long snout filled with sharp teeth.
Khankhuuluu's body proportions suggest it was a swift predator, compared to the more heavily built T.rex, which is likely due to it hunting smaller prey such as oviraptorosaurs and ornithomimosaurs.
The largest known T.rex specimen reached a length of 40-1/2 feet.
"In the name, we wanted to capture that Khankhuuluu was a small, early form that had not evolved into a king. It was still a prince," said Zelenitsky, co-author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
"Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite. For example, the bone along the top of the snout and the bones around the eye are somewhat different from what we see in tyrannosaurs," Zelenitsky said.
"The snout bone was hollow and the bones around the eye didn't have all the horns and bumps seen in tyrannosaurs.
"Khankhuuluu had teeth like steak knives, with serrations along both the front and back edges. Large tyrannosaurs had conical teeth and massive jaws that allowed them to bite with extreme force then hold in order to subdue very large prey. Khankhuuluu's more slender teeth and jaws show this animal took slashing bites to take down smaller prey."
