Mass grave suggests tyrannosaurs were pack hunters
Mass grave suggests tyrannosau.
A skull of Teraphoneus from a Utah dig site that contained the bones of at least four individual tyrannosaurs
Bureau of Land Management Utah View 1 Image 1/1
A skull of Teraphoneus from a Utah dig site that contained the bones of at least four individual tyrannosaurs
Bureau of Land Management Utah
Tyrannosaurs were pretty capable killers, and it’s easy to assume they didn’t need much help bringing down their prey. But contrary to the popular image of these fearsome predators being lone hunters, new analysis of a mass grave site adds to evidence tyrannosaurs may have lived and hunted in packs.
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Artist’s impression of the tyrannosaurs shortly after being killed in a flood and washed into a nearby lake. A
Deinosuchus alligator is shown n in the background.
Image: Victor Leshyk
A remarkable fossil site in Utah, in which several tyrannosaurs were found buried together, strengthens a burgeoning theory that these fearsome creatures hunted in packs, similar to wolves.
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That tyrannosaurs were social hunters is a possibility paleontologists have been considering for more than 20 years. Back in 1910, paleontologists working in Alberta, Canada, discovered the remains of 12 tyrannosaurs that appeared to have died together. This discovery was largely forgotten until Canadian paleontologist Philip Currie, now with the University of Alberta, revisited the old finding in 1998, arguing that it was evidence for “gregarious behavior” in tyrannosaurs and that these animals were pack hunters.
| Updated: 9:50 p.m.
Did the dinosaur age’s most fearsome predators hunt by themselves, or did tyrannosaurs live cooperatively in groups?
A surprising discovery in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument provides compelling evidence of the latter.
Scientists recovered several tyrannosaur specimens, representing animals of varying ages, that apparently died together in the Kaiparowits Plateau, suggesting complex social behavior akin to that seen today in lions and wolves, according to Alan Titus, a paleontologist with the Bureau of Land Management.
“Most predators are solitary. The reason for that is you have to have a very special purpose as a predator to want to get together and cooperate with what were originally your competitors for prey,” Titus said Monday in a news conference announcing the discovery. “And that involves guaranteeing success of taking down larger animals.”
Deseret News
Rainbows & Unicorns site in southern Utah reveals sophisticated family units
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Alan Titus, Bureau of Land Management
Researchers discovered a pile of dinosaurs at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument a family of the giant Tyrannosaurus rex that leads them to conclude they all died at the same time in the same flood event and were hanging out together in a “gregarious” social unit.
The Rainbows & Unicorns Quarry at the southern Utah site is groundbreaking because the mainstream narrative around these dinosaurs that roamed the Earth 76.4 million years ago is that they were solitary prey animals that lacked the sophistication to carry out a coordinated attack to deliver their next meal.