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T. rex ancestor?


The_bro87

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I read an article a while back that compared what the writer considered to be the most likely ancestors to T.rex. According to the article, Daspletosaurus is the most likely ancestor to T.rex. The article had some pretty interesting points about anagenisis, and how D. torosus probably evolved into D. horneri, and that the entire lineage ended with T.rex. One of the more interesting things I read was that a lacrimal bone was found in the Judith River Formation, and it was thought to be from T.rex. The article said that  Daspletosaurus had eye sockets more similar to T.rex than Albertosaurus or Gorgosaurus, and because of this was likely an ancestor. This sounded reasonable to me, but I understand you can’t trust everything you read online, and I wasn’t sure what the current scientific consensus was on the ancestor to T.rex. This is the link to the article https://magazine.scienceconnected.org/2017/03/dinosaur-gave-rise-tyrannosaurus-rex/

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Moved to General Fossil Discussion;) 

    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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I'm not familar at all with this author and what his qualifications are to speak on this subject. 

I can say this, if you read Tom Carr's 2017 paper where he described Daspletosaurus horneri he clearly writes "Daspletosaurus was an important apex predator in the late Campanian dinosaur faunas of Laramidia; its absence from later units indicates it was extinct before Tyrannosaurus rex dispersed into Laramidia from Asia."   So from a Tyrannosaur expert looks like Trex ancestors came from Asia and we still need new discoveries to answer your question.

 

You can see how he addresses the family tree of  Tyrannosaurines.

Screenshot_20191029-154103.thumb.jpg.df5acf0750c3578ea0c90f08aa203165.jpg

 

Daspletosaurus paper

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44942

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That paper does seem like it’s more supported. I’m happy I asked because that other article had me believing Daspletosaurus evolved into T.rex. Thanks again for the information 

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Very interesting. I remember that Discovery Channel's Dinosaur Planet documentary showed Daspletosaurus as the direct ancestor for T rex (and Maiasaura evolving into Edmontosaurus). I assumed that was correct and never thought to question it. I wonder what caused all the Daspletosaurus to die out.

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I was just reading through more, and the Daspletosaurus article from nature actually addresses the idea of D.torosus evolving to D.horneri, and then to T.rex. The paper gives reasons why it could be supported, and then continues to explain that the authors have placed T.rex away from both species of Daspletosaurus in favor of T.rex being more closely related to Asian Tyrannosaurs. This is a quote from the paper, “In contrast, the divergence between the Daspletosaurus clade on the one hand, and the Z. magnus + Tyrannosaurus clade on the other, was the result of a cladogenetic (lineage-splitting) event, since they do not form a continuous series of stratigraphically sequential taxa. Therefore, T. rex was not a continuation of the anagenetic Daspletosauruslineage1.” It then goes on to say that anagenisis from Z.magnus to T.rex will be considered as a new hypothesis. It’s cool to see that this paper addresses the idea of anagenisis from Daspletosaurus to Tyrannosaurus, but it defiantly gives better evidence against that being what actually happened. 

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