Alectrosaurus
Alectrosaurus was a medium-sized, meat-eating dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous. It was an early relative of the famous Tyrannosaurus rex, but smaller and more lightly built. Scientists have mostly found its leg and foot bones, so they are still learning what the rest of it looked like.1
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Fun facts
Alectrosaurus means 'alone lizard' because when it was first discovered, scientists thought it was a unique type of dinosaur.1
The only known skeleton of Alectrosaurus is mostly a hind leg and some foot bones. No complete skull has been found yet.1
Alectrosaurus had a special foot feature: the ends of its toe bones were swollen and raised up like little pedestals. Scientists call this the 'pediculate' condition.1
It lived about 90 to 83 million years ago, during the Coniacian to Campanian stages of the Late Cretaceous.1
Alectrosaurus was a tyrannosauroid, which means it was an early cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, but much smaller and more slender.1
Some fossils from Uzbekistan and Mongolia were once thought to be Alectrosaurus, but scientists now think those bones belong to other, unknown tyrannosaurs.1
Most asked questions about Alectrosaurus
?How big was Alectrosaurus?
It was about 5 to 6 metres (16 to 20 ft) long and weighed between 454 and 907 kg (1,001 to 2,000 lb).3
?What did Alectrosaurus eat?
It was a meat-eater, or carnivore, that hunted other animals.4
?Was Alectrosaurus a dinosaur?
Yes, it was a theropod dinosaur, a type of tyrannosauroid.3
?How fast could Alectrosaurus run?
It was a very fast runner, with long hindlimbs that made it a pursuit predator.3
?When did Alectrosaurus live?
It lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 96 to 83 million years ago.3
?Where was Alectrosaurus found?
Its fossils were found in the Iren Dabasu Formation in Inner Mongolia, China.3
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Alectrosaurus
- Named by
- Gilmore 19334
- Group
- Tyrannosaurs
- Family / clade
- Tyrannosauroidea4
- Classification
- Theropoda > Tyrannosauroidea4
- Age of the rocks
- 100 to 72 million years (Cenomanian / Campanian)4
- Rock formations
- Bissekty, Iren Dabasu, Khodzhakul4
- Countries
- Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China, Tajikistan4
- Fossil records
- 19 in the Paleobiology Database4
- Discovery
- Alectrosaurus was named by American paleontologist Charles W. Gilmore in 1933. The first fossils were found in the Iren Dabasu Formation in Inner Mongolia, China, during the Third Asiatic Expedition.41
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure what the skull of Alectrosaurus looked like, because no skull bones have been found that definitely belong to it.1
Where the facts come from
- A reappraisal of tyrannosauroid fossils from the Iren Dabasu Formation (Coniacian, Campanian), Inner (dinodata.de)
- Alectrosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
- Alectrosaurus - Wikipedia (en-wp.org)
- Alectrosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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