"My death was, greatly exaggerated" -Nanotyrannus

If it turns out to be real the nanotyrannus bros (not researchers) will be insufferable lol

Maybe the answer is Neoteny, it possible for Nanotyrannus have similar case like Axolotl, we known that salamander have ontogenic growth change and occupied different niches, nocticing that in Hell creeks formation they lack medium size carnivors, it's possible that in the growth stage of Tyrannosaure similar to Crocodile and Alligator the younglings switch niches to avoid direct competion for food with adultes and elders, when they arrive in they teenager awkward phase age they enter the Medium size carnivors they abondoned insects and bugs for meat phase new type of prey like the New paper of the juvenile gorgosaurus (strutiomimus, raptors, Oviraptoridae, young triceratops, ...) but when time pass some juvenile enjoyed this ecological niche they try to enter in the young adulte and adulte niches but they have to much competiton and riskes, some of the juvenile enter this niches but other stay and like the Axolotl they continue to grow in this medium size carnivors niches they are technically adultes but with the apperance of juvenile teenager phase like the Axolotl are adultes salamander but have the apperance of juvenile salamander (but they are different to have there hown name axolotl), maybe some juvenile tyrannosaure form some coalition with other juvenile tyrannosaure or they hunt in solo (like Cheetah) until they subadulte phase in wich they split to have theire hown terrritory and mate (especially the female), for me Tyrannosaure his the combination of Crocodile and Cassowary, i even imagine like the Southern cassowary (if they have parent caring behavior) that the male (have gracile morphology and are smaller than female) will raise and take care of the young and it's the female (have robuste morphology also in the robust tyrannosaure fossile have a lot of calcium in their bones that good for the eggs, and they are bigger than the gracile form) they across their large terrritory in search of a mate, it's the female who fight for a mate (like the Southern cassowary) and after breeding, she goes to find an other mate and the male stay close to the nest until the young hatch and the father will take care of their education once again like the Southern cassowaries

Cool paper, but what really grabbed my attention was that dimorphism concept- that would be wild!

One possibility is that Nanotyrannus emerged as a result of a land bridge emerging between Laramidia and Appalachia (which if I’m not mistaken did actually happen in the latest Cretaceous), and Nano in that case would be a more basal Tyrannosauroid (similar to Dryptosaurus) that crossed over to Laramidia, another hint of this is that Nanotyrannus supposedly had large arms just like the basal tyrannosauroids.

As someone who is fascinated by paleontology but doesn't have the time to read and keep up with it as well as my academic studies your channel is a godsend

Wonder if it might be a scenario similar to the Boa Constrictor /Boa Imperator. As they were considered to be the same species until DNA proved otherwise .

Looks like Nanotyrannus lancensis meats back on the menu boys!

There is no easter bunny There is no tooth fairy And there is no nanotyranus!

Thought its not as black and white, am glad this paper exist cause it really gets people talking yet again about paleontology and I just love it. This video really was well done and am so glad you made it ❤

This is super interesting and why I hugely appreciate this channel. ❤

If nano is an actual thing, wouldn't it look like alioramus ? I mean we have a giant tyrannosaur (tarbosaurus) and a small tyrannosaur (alioramus) living in the negmet formation and alioramus looks nothing like a juvenile tarbo, so nano looking nothing like alioramus is pretty weird to me

Hmm. I think the answer is we lack enough evidence. We need more skeletons for both animals to determine of this is correct. I also heard the same thing for Pachycephalosaurus / Stygimoloch / Dracorex.

Subscribed. Wonderful report brother.

Clearly, it’s a juvenile spinosaurus

Love this channel man Very very informative

The debate I've been waiting for

The way I see it is that maybe juveniles had longer fingers because that way they can grab more and then as they get older, they can use their jaws to pin down larger prey animals by triceratops

As someone said, it would be so funny if all the Nanotyrannus fossils we have are actually juvenile T. rex and then we find out there's actually another smaller Tyrannosaur from Hell Creek. A similar situation to Tarbosaurus and Alioramus

The possibility of extreme sexual dimorphism is absolutely fascinating, however I have a line of thinking that to me makes almost as much sense: there were plenty of tyrannosaurs inhabiting North America before the rise of T. rex. Given that the Asian Tarbosaurus is T. rex's closest known relative, it has been proposed that T. rex was actually an "invasive species" from Asia to North America. This is also supported by the sudden increase in size and durability of North America's herbivorous dinosaurs suggesting they became faced with a sudden new threat of unprecedented strength and bulk. Nanotyrannus could have been the result of a native tyrannosaur lineage (either the daspletosaurines or more likely, in my opinion, the albertosaurines) adapting to this new invasive predator by becoming smaller and faster. Either way, I also heard rumblings of this research a few years ago and was actually just wondering the other day what ever became of it. I'm glad the research is finally published and starting new conversations. For the record I've always been a Nanotyrannus proponent.

the idea that nanotyrannus could possibly be just the male version of the tyrannosaurus is rly funny to me lol anyway great video as always! very interesting 👀

hey, i went to a seminar about this topic last semester! different paper (schmerge & rothschild 2016; schmerge gave the presentation) but they had the same conclusion, that the two are separate genera. i'd never questioned the idea that nanotyrannus was an invalid taxon until i attended that presentation. the main focus of their paper was on a groove in the dentary bone of nanotyrannus, but what really sealed the deal for me was when he described the difference in tooth socket counts for n. lancensis and t. rex. both adult and confirmed young t. rex have an upper total of 52 teeth, while n. lancensis had 60+! his point was that we don't know of any extant animals that have fewer teeth as adults than juveniles; much less one that first increases tooth count then reduces back to the young morph. sadly they don't really discuss that much in the paper, i'd love to see a full-blown study on ontogenetic variances in tooth count to really test the validity of that argument.

7:45 From the tyrannosaur arm fossils that exist rn (Specimens of Gorgosaurus, Tarbosaurus and subadult trex) it looks like they had small arms throughout their ontogeny. I think all the evidence EXCEPT for the arms seems to be congruent with juvenile trex. But that dueling dinosaur tyrannosaur has arms a little bigger than adult trex and WAY bigger than subadult tyrannosaur specimens, so maybe there’s something to that?

I think the nano being valid is quite interesting, as I consider the assumption that T. rex occupying all the niches from middle to apex predator quite unlikely

Ever since I learned of Nanotyrannus through those Atlas books in the 90s, I’ve always thought it was probably a juvenile.

I'm not really convinced by this. The comparison images shown in the paper don't look that different at all aside from one being less heavily built than the other, which you would expect from a juvenile, and the maxillary fenestrae they say "doesn't move" in Tarbosaurus looks to do exactly that in the diagrams shown, and in the same way as Tyrannosaurus. The only real solution is to find fossils of something that looks like "Nanotyrannus" but is a fully grown individual. Until that day I see no reason to suspect we're looking at anything but a growth stage of Tyrannosaurus.

I like the part at the end where it was speculated that Nano could be a male. There are birds that have vastly different characteristics as male/female. It would even give each sex a different target prey, etc.

Hi. I always enjoy your VIDEOs. Thank you very much! I have a question for you. Is it possible if T-rex would have a different kind of dimorphism, if not "sexual" dimorphism? I know certain fishes, such as salmons/trouts, and some beetle species have two extremely different body sizes, probably considered as a kind of pedomorphic heterochrony, such as neoteny or progenesis. So, I am wondering if T-rex fulfill two niches by making a smaller version of it, as Nano. did somebody already suggested this scenario??

Maybe the Nanotyrannus specimens are the young of another tyrannosaurid?

What about Dakotaraptor in hell creek, Dakotaraptor was the medium predator in hell creek I’m pretty sure

I am going to say they may have a point. In the similar ecological make up of Mongolia we have a smaller pursuit predator tyrant in qianzhousaurus, a large bone cruncher with Tarbosaurus, and a large ambushing raptor in achillobator. In hell creek we have t-rex as the bone cruncher, Dakotaraptor as the large ambushing raptor, and nannotyrannus as the pursuit predator

Just found you and subscribed :-) I wonder how many different "species" are actually juveniles .... After all a tadpole is nothing like a frog....

I think the bottom line is until there is more fossil evidence dug up the debate will never end. I see both sides of the argument. I personally always beleived the Nano was just a juvi T-rex. My question is where is all the juvi T-rex fossils at? I think we may be seeing them already with this Nano. T-rex goes through some very drastic body changes as it grows so the argument that the Nano looks too different may not hold up.

Do you think this study will get refuted later on this year?

Nanotyrannus is mine t,rex and he is indeed junevole , you are right raptor chatter

we still have so much to learn about these animals

The last information I had about Nanotyranus, was concerning a dueling dinos discovery. There the forelimbs of the tyranosaur, were well preserved and compared to adult T-Rex forelimbs. The 6m tyranosaur being extracted had forelimbs almost double the size of an 8 ton 12m T-Rex. Limbs don't shrink, except proportionately. So if this critter was a young T-Rex, you might expect its adult form to be verging on early Godzilla proportions! Far more likely, this Tyranosaur was an adult, or near adult animal and a separate species. Now maybe some researchers can do in depth analysis of the remains, and maybe it is yet another variation of Tyranosaurs as opposed to "Nanotyranus"... But meanwhile I'll give Nanotyranus my support as a separate iinteresting species.

He said "I always comeback "

My personal conjecture is that Dryptosaurus is a missing piece of the puzzle eg identity of the tyranosaur in the Dueling Dinos fossil.

thx for covering this... nanotyrannus is actually so freaking cool.. i feel like its real...

Clayton found a juvenile t-rex arms that are longer than an adult...

According to the Ben Thomas KZfaq channel they have juvenile T-Rex specimens and they look different the Nanotyrannis

Why no juvenile T-rex fossils? My theory is that just like lions and hyenas kill eachothers young, most animals that could kill T-rex young would ALWAYS do it. Nobody wanted that thing to grow to its full power. T-rex was a terryfing animal.

Dakotaraptor died so Nanotyrannus can live on.

we will have to see

have you ever heard of the Montana dueling dinosaur fossils were it has a more complete Nanotyrannus skeleton and an unknown horned dinosaur and do you plan to talk about it in a Futere video?

Microtyrannus maybe?

If anything the “Nanotyrannus” Holotype specimen might be distinct, but Jane, and the other “Nanotyrannus” specimens contain too many features with Tyrannosaurus rex to be distinct. Besides we would have to ask the question of where the actual juvenile T,rex fossils are? If “Nanotyrannus” is in fact distinct, unless they want to propose that juvenile T,Rex’s looked exactly like miniature versions of the adults.

And I thought Spinosaurus was the greatest mistery of paleontology...

8:00 There is no example of a vertebrate that reabsorbs calcium to reduce its limb size, it's a baseless assumption.

Hearing that Nanotyrannus might be a valid taxa, made me wonder - what does a juvenile Trex look like? Did these species compete before Trex matures into its adult morph

I don’t really believe that Nanotyrannus is valid, simply because we have only found juvenile to subadult age “Nanotyrannus” specimens, while we have only discovered subadult to adult aged Tyrannosaurus specimens. Not to mention if the juvenile T,rex specimens referred to Nanotyrannus are indeed distinct then where are the actual juvenile T,rex specimens. Because after all it seems quite likely based on what we know about Archosaur ontogeny is that juveniles tend to look very distinct from their adult counterparts, so unless we are going to assume Juvenile Rexes looked like minature versions of the adults we must assume that the “Nanotyrannus specimens are the missing Juvenile T,rex specimens. That said I would love to see everyone else’se opinion on this.

It makes sense that Nanotyrannus would be pretty closely related to Alioramus.

So tiny people are acceptable but i wonder why tiny animals have never really been thought of by scientists?

I disagree on the sexual dimorphism angle of this. Not to say the uh...geometry of the situation wouldn't work, but a great Dane screwing a Chihuahua really doesn't make a lot of sense for a bipedal animal. Sure, it works okay for snakes and other animals where they can line up regardless of size, but as funny as it would be I don't think it would work.

Yes

Perhaps predatory dinosaurs like nanotyrannus just keep growing all their lives like andacondas

BLINK DAMNIT, BLINK

I guess my only issue with the dimorphism theory is that we have massive male (and female) tyrannosaur specimens and bones, correct me if I’m wrong but e.d. Cope is assumed to have been the largest rex in size and mass and is also a male.

Ok here comes my perhaps crazy/quite amateurish hypothesis: Nanotyranos is kind of the dinosaur equialent to permanent "juvenile" axolotl. A population of subadult Tyrannosaurus Rex found it's self in a enviromental situation where it's advantageous to stay in the more agile less food requiering subadult mid-size range predator form/stage, as long as possible, which selected for a incrise in the time it takes to reach adulthood until a point where the subadult stage, became the actual final form/stage. That might or might still be able to grow larger & more devoloped, when special food options or enviromental conditions trigger it. Still teachnically not a different species because successful procreating with other non-permanent juvenile t-rex might be occassionally possible, even if difficult because of differences in mating behavior at different ages & height of reproductive organs etc. The longer arms & claws could be a adaptation to their life-style that sets one of the first signs of becoming a truly unique seperated species. Of course this all depends on weather or not Tyrannosaurus was able to lay egs in a juvenile/subadult stage, & is likely not very prove or disproveable, but might be worth a thought?

NANOTYRANNUS!!! NANOTYRANNUS IS REAL!!!!!

Ha ha, I love the sexual dimorphism hypothesis. If it turns out that the huge T-Rex that we know and love were all fully-grown females, and the diminutive "Nanotyrannus" were the fully-grown males, for some reason I would find that absolutely hilarious.

I love the idea of sexual dimorphism

Once again, they finally accepted that Nanotyrannus the Pygmy Tyrant is for real. Well I have known ever since one of the Dinosaur Books back in the 1990S when I was a kid. Before it made some Media appearances on some Dinosaur Documentaries like The Mystery Dinosaur, Jurassic Fight Club, Dinosaurs Decoded, Dino Death Match & Dino Hunters. Especially that Dino Dana Movie.

The dimorphism argument is really interesting. It means the same environment could support a much bigger population because malss and females would't be competing for the same respourcs! Really cool!

*T. rex, not "T-Rex".

Let's fucking go bebe! "Buttercup the bodybuilder was here... Cause Im a workhorse in the gym.

I don’t really agree with this study.

YES!!!! JURASSIC FIGHT CLUB WAS RIGHT!!!! WHOOO!!!!! YEAH! IN YOUR FACE, JFC HATERS!!!!!