Khankhuuluu

What it was like

Khankhuuluu was a medium-sized relative of Tyrannosaurus, with long, slender legs and a shallow skull. It was built more for speed than for crushing bites.

It sits near the point where tyrannosaurs began to grow into giants, and it helps show how that change began.

Its world

It lived in the Late Cretaceous, about 101 to 84 million years ago, in what is now Mongolia. Its fossils come from the Baynshire Formation, where it lived with the raptor Achillobator and the long-clawed Segnosaurus and Erlikosaurus.

How it was found

Voris and colleagues named Khankhuuluu in 2025. The type species is Khankhuuluu mongoliensis. Its bones had been found decades earlier and first assigned to Alectrosaurus. Two finds are known.