http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/22/us/siats-meekerorum-dinosour-discovered/
read the comments
(CNN) -- It lived about 100 million years ago, weighed four tons and likely was at the very top of its prehistoric food chain.
Researchers from Chicago's Field Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State University announced Friday the discovery of Siats meekerorum, a dinosaur that stretched more than 30 feet long, in eastern Utah.
Given its size and other characteristics, they believe this creature ruled its ecosystem in the middle of the Cretaceous, a period known as the last in the so-called "Age of Dinosaurs."
It's not known if Siats meekerorum existed alongside Tyrannosaurus rex; fossils found from the same patch of Utah's Cedar Mountain Formation shows it did share the land with tyrannosaurs. But relatively speaking, these tyrannosaurs were much smaller (and below the 7 or so tons of later T. Rexes) and definitely down on the predatory food chain.
"At least 98 million years ago, we know that (tyrannosaurs) were small and somebody else was top dog in the neighborhood," said Peter Makovicky, The Field Museum's dinosaur curator.
Name means 'cannibalistic monster'
"This dinosaur was a colossal predator second only to the great T. rex and perhaps Acrocanthosaurus in the North American fossil record," said Zanno, the lead author of the study in Nature Communications announcing the discovery, in a press release.
read the comments