Outline: a typical theropod
Teratophoneus
TER-uh-toh-FOH-nee-us
"monstrous murderer"
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Group
- Theropods, Tyrannosauridae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Carr et al. 2011
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Teratophoneus
What it was like
Teratophoneus was a tyrannosaur with a short, deep skull, shorter than those of its northern relatives. It walked on two legs and had small arms and thick teeth for biting through bone.
The known skeletons seem to be young animals, so adults may have been larger.
Its world
It lived about 84 to 72 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Utah. Its fossils come from the Kaiparowits Formation, where it was probably the top predator.
It shared that land with the horned Kosmoceratops and Utahceratops and the duck-bills Parasaurolophus and Gryposaurus.
How it was found
Carr and colleagues named Teratophoneus in 2011. Two finds are known.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Tyrannosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: T. D. Carr, T. E. Williamson, and B. B. Britt, K. L. Stadtman. 2011. Evidence for high taxonomic and morphologic tyrannosauroid diversity in the Late Cretaceous (Late Campanian) of the American Southwest and a new short-skulled tyrannosaurid from the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah. Naturwissenschaften 98(3):241-246