Sinotyrannus

What it was like

Sinotyrannus was a large, early relative of the tyrannosaurs. It is known from part of a skull, some backbones and part of the hips, which show it was far bigger than most early tyrannosauroids.

It belonged to a family whose members often carried crests on their snouts, and was a relative of Yutyrannus and Guanlong.

Its world

It lived about 121 to 113 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now China. Its bones come from the Jiufotang Formation, where it shared forests and lakes with the four-winged Microraptor and the beaked Psittacosaurus.

How it was found

Ji and colleagues named Sinotyrannus kazuoensis in 2009, from a single find. It shows that some tyrannosaur relatives grew large long before the giant tyrannosaurs of the Late Cretaceous.