Moros Intrepidus on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''Moros'' is a genus of
''Moros'' was first discovered at the Stormy Theropod site located in
''Moros'' was a small-bodied,
tyrannosauroid
Tyrannosauroidea (meaning 'tyrant lizard forms') is a superfamily (or clade) of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs that includes the family Tyrannosauridae as well as more basal relatives. Tyrannosauroids lived on the Laurasian supercontinent ...
theropod
Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally ...
that lived during the Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...
period in what is now Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...
, United States. It contains a single species, ''M. intrepidus''. ''Moros'' represents one of the earliest known diagnostic tyrannosauroid material from the North America.
Discovery and naming
''Moros'' was first discovered at the Stormy Theropod site located in Emery County
Emery County is a county in east-central Utah, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 10,976. Its county seat is Castle Dale, and the largest city is Huntington.
History Prehistory
Occupation of the San Rafae ...
in the U.S. state of Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...
. Palaeontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
s had been researching the area for ten years when in 2013 limb bones were seen jutting out of a hillside, prompting the excavation. The bones were described as of a new species in February, 2019.
In 2019, the type species ''Moros intrepidus'' was named and described by Lindsay E. Zanno, Ryan T. Tucker, Aurore Canoville, Haviv M. Avrahami, Terry A. Gates and
Peter J. Makovicky. The generic name is derived from the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''Moros
In Greek mythology, Moros /ˈmɔːrɒs/ or Morus /ˈmɔːrəs/ (Ancient Greek: Μόρος means 'doom, fate') is the 'hateful' personified spirit of impending doom, who drives mortals to their deadly fate. It was also said that Moros gave peop ...
'' (an embodiment of impending doom), in reference to the establishment of the tyrannosauroid lineage in North America. The specific name is the Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
word ''intrepidus'' ("intrepid"), referring to the hypothesized dispersal of tyrannosauroids throughout North America following ''Moros''.
The holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...
, NCSM 33392, was found in the lower Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation
The Cedar Mountain Formation is the name given to a distinctive sedimentary geologic formation in eastern Utah, spanning most of the early and mid-Cretaceous. The formation was named for Cedar Mountain in northern Emery County, Utah, where Willia ...
dating from the Cenomanian. The layer has a maximimum age of 96.4 million years. The holotype consists of a right hindlimb. It contains the thighbone, the shinbone, the second and fourth metatarsal and the third and fourth phalanx of the fourth toe. LAGs (Lines of arrested growth
Growth arrest lines, also known as Harris lines, are lines of increased bone density that represent the position of the growth plate at the time of insult to the organism and formed on long bones due to growth arrest. They are only visible by rad ...
) indicate that it represents a subadult individual of six or seven years old, nearing its maximum size. Additionally, two premaxillary teeth were referred to the species, specimens NCSM 33393 and NCSM 33276.
Description
''Moros'' was a small-bodied, cursorial
A cursorial organism is one that is adapted specifically to run. An animal can be considered cursorial if it has the ability to run fast (e.g. cheetah) or if it can keep a constant speed for a long distance (high endurance). "Cursorial" is often u ...
tyrannosauroid with an estimated limb length of and body mass of . The foot bones of ''Moros'' were extremely slender, with metatarsal proportions found to be more similar to ornithomimids
Ornithomimidae (meaning "bird-mimics") is a family of theropod dinosaurs which bore a superficial resemblance to modern ostriches. Ornithomimids were fast, omnivorous or herbivorous dinosaurs known mainly from the Late Cretaceous Period of Lauras ...
than to other Late Cretaceous tyrannosauroids.
Classification
In their phylogenetic analyses, Zanno and colleagues in 2019 recovered ''Moros'' as a basal pantyrannosaurian alongside Asian taxa from the middle of the Cretaceous such as ''Xiongguanlong
''Xiongguanlong'' ("Grand Pass dragon") is a genus of tyrannosauroid dinosaur that lived in the Early Cretaceous of what is now China. The type species is ''X. baimoensis'', described online in 2009 by a group of researchers from China and the U ...
'' and ''Timurlengia
''Timurlengia'' is an extinct genus of tyrannosauroid theropod dinosaur found in Uzbekistan, in the Bissekty Formation in the Kyzylkum Desert, hailing from the Turonian age of the early Late Cretaceous. The type species is ''Timurlengia euotica'' ...
''. This phylogenetic affinity with Asian basal tyrannosauroids suggests that ''Moros'' was part of a transcontinental exchange between the biota
Biota may refer to:
* Biota (ecology), the plant and animal life of a region
* Biota (plant), common name for a coniferous tree, ''Platycladus orientalis''
* Biota, Cinco Villas, a municipality in Aragon, Spain
* Biota (band), a band from Color ...
s of Asia and North America during the mid-Cretaceous that is well-documented in other taxa.
See also
*Timeline of tyrannosaur research
This timeline of tyrannosaur research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the tyrannosaurs, a group of predatory theropod dinosaurs that began as small, long-armed bird-like creatures with elaborate cran ...
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q61791935 Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America Tyrannosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2019