The Tiny T. rex Causing a Big Science Feud

You’ve heard of Tyrannosaurus rex, but did you know they might have a mini-cousin called Nanotyrannus? And that “might” is serious, because researchers have been arguing about it for nearly 40 years and still haven’t gotten to the bottom of it. Let's talk about T. rex's mini-me, and why it's so hard to tell for sure what's really going on with these giant, mini fossils!

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Sources:

[theartyone]

There's a TED talk on YouTube called (I think) "Where Are All the Baby Dinosaurs?" ...and the Doctor doing the lecture says "All Doctors have Big Egos so all want to be the one who discovered a new Species. ...so a lot of smaller Dinos are actually babies. 😂 Friggin' Doctors, man!

[arnbrandy]

When I heard that the "Dueling Dinosaurs" are a triceratops and a tyrannosaur fighting, I thought to myself it was a mistake, the Dueling Dinosaurs were a protoceratops and a velociraptor. Turns out I'm wrong, those are known as the Fighting Dinosaurs. I confess I giggled at my confusion, but I'm also amazed we have enough dinosaur-fighting fossils I could mix them up.

[roth]

"Waaaay back in 2006" makes me feel older than it should...

[Vehrec]

As a guy who grew up going to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, I've been at ground zero of Camp Nanotyranus for years.

[HappilyCarnivore]

You made me think that a tiny T-rex existed (which made me irrationally happy) just to instantly go "But not so fast". I have whiplash.

[bevinboulder]

This is a weird coincidence. I was just reading about Jack Horner last night and he now believes that perhaps as much as 30% of dino species are actually just juvenile versions of already identified species.

[Gilgwathir]

Nanotyrannus would be my name as a Sith Lord.

[desertrosie]

We had a litter of puppies and now they are 4 years old. The smallest one is about 65lbs while her brother is about 240lbs. Crazy how that can happen.

[danielhurtado]

"Typical Teenage T Rex" sounds like a sitcom we would love 😍😆

[Mike.Kachar]

"Or 91 footballs, in case you wanna keep measuring things that way" 🤣

[bloognoo]

The Terrible Lizards podcast has an episode dedicated to Nanotyrannis (and why nobody should try and claim a new species based on a single photo of a fossil in a private collection nobody is allowed to touch).

[germanomagnone]

This story about the Nanotyrannus debate reminds me a lot of Jack Horner's hypothesis that Dracorex Hogwarts was an infantile form of Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch was an adolescent form

[bkkeee]

Good teacher, more natural talking than a lot of other youtube educators

[lady_draguliana]

If we make "Football" a unit of measure, then we'll just have another Measurement War as we use Footballs and the Eu uses Futbols and scream at each other about which is correct...

[markoshun]

Savannah is a great host for SciShow. Haven't seen them before. Great timing, humor, and enthusiasm. Well done.. Cool topic too.

[michaelacosta]

I've actually been up close to the Cleveland skull in January of 2020 at the Cleveland Natural History Museum (I double checked because I posted it on Instagram). A friend, Lee, was the Lead Vertebrate Paleontologist for the museum at the time. He said at that point they recently determined it to be a baby T-rex and not a nano. I only thought that was interesting because he was saying that before the 2021 discovery. Great video!

[Devedrus]

On ontogentic niche shifts:
They're actually pretty common in living vertebrates too. But, we dont see the crazy changes in form like in nonavian dinosaurs.

Thats probably because right now the largest animals in our ecosystems are mammals and birds. And mammals and birds grow quickly. So, even if their juvenile forms arent very efficient at filling their niche, they grow into their adult forms fast enough that it doesnt matter.

So nonavian dinosaurs arent particularly unusual in having niche shifts through life, but rather in how slowly they transitioned bwtween them.

[Rook]

Same conversation as the Dracorex which is probably just a young Pachycephalosaurus

[justayoutuber]

"I will call him 'MiniMe'..."

[persuasivebarrier]

are they able to tell if it's a "dwarf" rex rather than a "cousin?"