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Concept
Tarbosaurus
Summary
Tarbosaurus (ˌtɑːrbəˈsɔːrəs ; meaning "alarming lizard") is a genus of tyrannosaurine theropod dinosaur that lived in Asia about 70 million years ago, during the Maastrichtian age at the end of the Late Cretaceous period, considered to contain a single known species: Tarbosaurus bataar. Fossils have been recovered from the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia, with more fragmentary remains found further afield in the Subashi Formation of China.
Although many species have been named, modern paleontologists recognize only one species, T. bataar. Some experts see this species as an Asian representative of the North American genus Tyrannosaurus, which would make the genus Tarbosaurus redundant. Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, if not synonymous, are considered to be very closely related genera. Alioramus, also from Mongolia, has previously been thought by some authorities to be the closest relative of Tarbosaurus, though this has since been disproven with the discovery of Qianzhousaurus and the description of the tyrannosaurine tribe Alioramini.
Like most known tyrannosaurids, Tarbosaurus was a large bipedal predator, with the type specimen measuring approximately long, tall at the hips, and weighing up to . It had a unique locking mechanism in its jaw, equipped with about sixty large teeth, and the smallest arms relative to body size of all tyrannosaurids, renowned for their disproportionately tiny, two-fingered hands.
Tarbosaurus lived in a humid floodplain criss-crossed by river channels. In this environment, it was an apex predator preying on other large dinosaurs, like the hadrosaurids Saurolophus and Barsboldia or the sauropod Nemegtosaurus. Tarbosaurus is represented by dozens of fossil specimens, including several complete skulls and skeletons. These remains have allowed scientific studies focusing on its phylogeny, skull mechanics, and brain structure.
In 1946, a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi Desert in the Ömnögovi Province turned up a large theropod skull and some vertebrae from the Nemegt Formation.
Official source
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