Picture: Researchers show the cleaned and restored teeth fossils of Tyrannosaurus rex superfamily\ Xinhua News Agency
Comprehensive Xinhua News Agency and Nanfang Daily reported that Tyrannosaurus rex superfamily was a predatory theropod dinosaur with a large difference in size. It was a dominant group in the middle and late Cretaceous, of which Tyrannosaurus rex was an important member. The Chinese scientific research team announced on the 16th that a total of four Tyrannosaurus superfamily tooth fossils were found in Tianhe, Guangzhou, and the fourth meeting in Zhaoqing. This is the record of Tyrannosaurus superfamily fossils found in the southernmost geographical location in China so far, and it is also the first time that Tyrannosaurus superfamily fossils were found in Guangzhou.
This research was jointly completed by Xing Lida's research group of China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Sihui Museum of Guangdong Province, Sun Yat sen University, Guangdong Zhongda Institute of Deep Geosciences and other institutional teams. Xing Lida introduced that Guangdong is an important production area of various Cretaceous fossils in China, of which dinosaur fossils are mainly found in Nanxiong Basin and Heyuan area of Guangdong, while there are few dinosaur fossil records in Sanshui Basin. Among the teeth found this time, 3 were found in Sihui City, and the other one was found in Guangzhou City. All the teeth have the same morphological characteristics, which is consistent with the teeth characteristics of Tyrannosaurus rex superfamily.
The late Cretaceous record of large theropods has been rare in South China. The late Cretaceous record of dinosaur egg fossils in Sanshui Basin also shows that there are dinosaurs such as Traodontosaurus, Egg Stealer and Aphthypus active in this area. "The teeth of Tyrannosaurus rex superfamily found this time and they formed a dinosaur biota, indicating that the dinosaur biota was probably quite prosperous in South China before the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period," Xing Lida said.
