New Meat-Eating Dinosaur From Utah

[DD1991]

Another surprise dinosaur discovery in Utah:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-new-dinosaur-siats-meekerorum-discovered-20131121,0,6885690,full.story

As it turns out, geography could not impede the neovenatorids from spreading to North America. Given that Chilantaisaurus is also a neovenatorid and from the same hemisphere as Siats, it's therefore possible that Siats may be descended from some neovenatorid that left Asia and made it to North America via the Bering Straits because dino trackways¹ and a tyrannosaur tooth from the Gallic epoch in Wyoming² provide evidence for the emplacement of Beringia about 110 million years ago, potentially enabling dinos to make it to North America from Asia via the Bering Straits.

1. Fiorillo A R , Decker P L, LePain D L, Wartes M& McCarthy P J. 2010. A probable neoceratopsian manus track from the Nanushuk Formation (Albian, northern Alaska). In: Buscalioni A D & Frenegal-Martínez M A eds. Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems and biota. Journal of Iberian Geology, 36: 165-174

^{2.https://www.academia.edu/454834/On_the_earliest_record_of_Cretaceous_tyrannosauroids_in_western_North_America_implications_for_an_Early_Cretaceous_Laurasian_interchange_event}

Edited November 22, 2013 by DD1991

[Auspex]

A big allosauroid; pretty cool!

[Bev]

Great story! Thank you for sharing!

[Down under fossil hunter]

Very good read, thanks a bunch.