Move over, T. Rex...

Welcome to Lythronax argestes, the grandfather of T. Rex (and my second favorite dinosaur)

Its name means 'The Gore King of the south' and hails from Utah ~80 million years ago. It would have lived in a 'near shore coastal community' with a plethora of horned dinosaurs, some flying reptiles, and a couple of 'duck-billed dinosaurs' (and some stinky rat mammals)

It's a very fitting name. Some of the better preserved teeth found have serrations that can still cut paper with ease

Lythronax is the oldest known specimen of the 'wide faced' tyrannosaurs, which means a bigger, badder bite, and is the earliest named direct T. Rex ancestor

Teeth are generally less than 3" but seem more serrated than much later tyrannosaurs

The teeth and skull are incredibly well designed for a bite-then-pull action for eating hadrosaurs and ceratopsians

Support your local museum(s). They do so much of this research for less $ an hour than people make at McDonald's

Photo credits goes to Atuchin, Staab, Sertich/Lowen,et. al., and Lukas Panzarin

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24817884

Also, every one of these dinosaur parts are insanely heavy and hard to move from the hyper-remote places they are found. Even helicopters have trouble getting to the fossil locations, so fossil jackets have to be moved by hand even if they are several hundreds of pounds. If you ever meet a field paleontologist give them your gratitude and buy them a beer. They all need it

Not accurate...

...But still funny. Upvotes appreciated if you like dinosaurs. I have lots of cool stuff to share about dinos and shit if there is interest