This disappearance is thought to have been related to the rise of tyrannosauroids as apex predators, but this transition has remained poorly understood because of the scarcity of relevant fossils. The species is named for the country where the fossil was discovered.īefore the Late Cretaceous, carcharodontosaurians like Ulughbegsaurus disappeared from the paleocontinent that included Central Asia. The genus’s namesake is fittingly regal Ulughbegsaurus is named for Ulugh Beg, the 15th century mathematician, astronomer, and sultan of the Timurid Empire of Central Asia. Therefore, the newly named dinosaur likely topped the food web in its early Late Cretaceous ecosystem. This size greatly exceeds that of any other carnivore known from the Bissekty Formation, including the small-sized tyrannosauroid Timurlengia described from the same formation. Thus, we were able to estimate that Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis had a mass of over 1,000 kg, and was approximately 7.5 to 8.0 meters in length, greater than the length of a full-grown African elephant.” “Among theropod dinosaurs, the size of the maxilla can be used to estimate the animal’s size because it correlates with femur length, a well-established indicator of body size. “We described this new genus and species based on a single isolated fossil, a left maxilla, or upper jawbone,” explains study first author Assistant Professor Kohei Tanaka. Two separate evolutionary analyses support classification of the new dinosaur as the first definitive carcharodontosaurian discovered in the Upper Cretaceous of Central Asia. The new dinosaur, named Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis, was found in the lower Upper Cretaceous Bissekty Formation of the Kyzylkum Desert in Uzbekistan, and therefore lived about 90 million years ago. In a new study published in Royal Society Open Science, a research team led by the University of Tsukuba has described a new genus and species belonging to the Carcharodontosauria, a group of medium- to large-sized carnivorous dinosaurs that preceded the tyrannosauroids as apex predators. But they didn’t always hold that top spot. rex famously dominated the top of the food web at the end of the reign of the dinosaurs. University of Tsukuba researchers have described a new apex predator from the lower Upper Cretaceous of Central Asia, Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis, which coexisted with a smaller tyrannosauroid. The fossil’s age, location, and co-occurrence with the smaller tyrannosaurid Timurlengia shed light on the transition from carcharodontosaurians to tyrannosaurids occupying the apex predator niche. The University of Tsukuba-led research team estimated that this carcharodontosaurian weighed over 1000 kg and measured 7.5–8.0 meters in length, much larger than previously described predators from the same formation. A new dinosaur from the lower Upper Cretaceous of Uzbekistan, Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis, was described from a single maxilla fossil.
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