
Carnosaur
MemberCompsognathusSeptember 10, 2014AKA "Celeste"
While browsing the bonus features of the JP/// DVD, i came across an interesting little snippet called Montana: Finding new dinosaurs In it, Horner talks about field excavations, recruiting for those excavations, all that good stuff.
The camera panned over some plaster coated fossils somewhere towards the middle of the featurette, and what i saw made me pause instantly.
In bold black and red sharpie letters, was the name C-rex" on a number of the fossil specimens.
For those of you who doubted this thing existed, it's all so real.
Horner talks vaguely about finding "The largest specimen of Tyrannosaurus to date", and then some more vagueness about a hadrosaur - Vague is Horner's thing after all. Celeste is ~35% complete from what i've gathered, enough to get a size estimate off of...But that's going to come up shortly,
He later goes on to state this thing was "any where between 40-45 feet long, we really don't know for sure." He stated the same thing about the hadrosaur, which i'm guessing is Edmontosaurus Annectens, But i really have nothing to work with on that one.
According to Horner, it's one of the older Tyrannosaurus specimens ever found, which "will give us insite on the evolution of Tyrannosaurus" as he so eloquently put it.
"We have a complete torso, so for the first time we know the shape of Tyrannosaurus" he went on to say.
Really, because i thought it was Ankylosaurian in nature?
mind blown...
In all seriousness, C-rex is, no doubt, a specimen of Tyrannosaurus,
There's been internet speculation that "Celeste" as she is so affectionately called, was a Carcharodontosaur.
Well, let's take a look at it...shall we?
Here is one of the original casts of Celeste's skull.
Does that^
Look anything like that?
Not really, no.
So, it's a virtual certainty this thing was a tyrannosaurus.
Based on Horner's field measurements, "Celeste" is ~10% bigger then Sue.
Sue, originally thought to be the largest Tyrannosaurus specimen, measures 41 feet in length and a rough mass estimate of 7.5 tons
So, simple math shows a plausible size scenario for this new giant.
According to my calculations, Celeste would measure 44 feet in length, and weigh upwards of 8-8.5 tons
From this, it looks like we have a new largest specimen of Tyrannosaurus for the record books, folks
Nature doesn't deceive us; it is we who deceive ourselves.