© Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management
"Hollywood" specimen, same species as Teratophoneus, discovered approximately two miles north of the "Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry" on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The fearsome tyrannosaur dinosaurs that ruled the northern hemisphere during the Late Cretaceous period (66-100 million years ago)
may not have been solitary predators as popularly envisioned, but social carnivores similar to wolves, according to a new study.
The finding, based on research at a unique fossil bone site inside Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument containing the remains of several dinosaurs of the same species, was made by a team of scientists including Celina Suarez, U of A associate professor of geosciences.
"This supports our hypothesis that these tyrannosaurs died in this site and were all fossilized together; they all died together, and this information is key to our interpretation that the animals were likely gregarious in their behavior," Suarez said.
The research team also included scientists from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Colby College of Maine and James Cook University in Australia. The study examines a unique fossil bone site inside Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument called the "Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry" that they say exceeded the expectations raised even from the site's lofty nickname.
"Localities [like Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry] that produce insights into the possible behavior of extinct animals are especially rare and difficult to interpret," said tyrannosaur expert Philip Currie in a press release from the Bureau of Land Management. "Traditional excavation techniques, supplemented by the analysis of rare earth elements, stable isotopes and charcoal concentrations convincingly show a synchronous death event at the Rainbows site of four or five tyrannosaurids.
Undoubtedly, this group died together, which adds to a growing body of evidence that tyrannosaurids were capable of interacting as gregarious packs."
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