The size of Lythronax Argestes

The relatively recent find of a tyrannosaur dubbed "King of Gore" got the paleontological word hyped. A new early tyrannosaur that shared the same characteristics of the late Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus, and it was a pretty sizeable animal as well.

Just how big, exactly?

For starters, the type specimen for Lythronax is about 6.6-7.0 meters. The 8 meter estimates are based on the fact that the type specimen is thought to be a "nearly mature sub-adult. "

Scott Hartman's skeletal is shorter and overall smaller than his skeletal for 'Big Al'; an Allosaurus specimen in the region of 7.3 meters long and estimated to be 1.5 tonnes in weight by Bates et al. 2009.

I can't find any mention of an 8 meter estimate in the Plos ONE articlethat initially described this thing, so I suspect it was a media fabrication to begin with.

In the initial reports, the holotype of Lythronax argestes is approximately estimated at  6.8m long (tail ~52% TL),  reconstructed as having a proportionally bigger torso and tail based on Bistahieversor. 

How do you somehow come up with a 10 meter figure literally out of nowhere? It's all well and good saying "it's just an estimate", but estimates need to have some sort of basis, this has none.
Further, I can find no mention of the type specimen of Lythronax being a juvenile in the description paper - although the new Teratophoneus specimen is described as a sub-adult. in fact the general line of thinking seems to be that the Lythronax holotype was Sub-adult to young Adult - not a juvenile - since it was about 6.5-7 meters long. And most official sources report that it could grow to about ~8 meters(26.2 feet in length), and weight up to 2.5 tons(5,500 lbs). Which would be quite realistic for a sub-adult or young adult to do.

Let's to the math, and take a look at the skull. Shall we?

It  was pretty big, but only by height. it had a very narrow skull by tyrannosaur standards. only flaring out at the base.

Going by the scale bar, the Holotype(sub-adult) had a skull roughly measuring 79 cm(2.591 feet)

2.591 x 8 yields ~ 20.72 feet in TBL(6.3 meters) 

Now, let's take in to account that this thing was a sub-adult. Tyrannosaurid growth rates Show that this family hit a massive growth spurt right before reaching maturity. This is more noticeable in Tyrannosaurus, but pretty persistant throughout the other large bodied tyrannosaurs.

Lythronax shared a more common morphology with Daspletosaurus and Bistahieversor, rather then Gorgosaurus and Albertosaurus. Peaking at maturity, Daspletosaurus would weigh around 1700 kg(1.8 tons), before tanking off and reaching a weight of 2200 kg(2.4 tons) It's safe to say that The growth patterns of L. Argestes were similar, and that gives us a template.

The 9 meters is likely an inaccurate quote from a newspaper/report. All of the "official" scientific reports that I've seen on Lythronax agree on an adult length of about 7.3-8 meters (24-26 feet). Which also agrees with Scott Hartman's drawing comparing Lythronax with type specimens of Teratophoneus and Bistahieversor.

The holotype does appear to be a sub-adult animal, albeit very near maturity. It wasn't the biggest tyrannosaur, nor was it as big as the media and other sourced made it out to be, but it was a pretty sizeable animal.