New "Destroyer" Dinosaur Found, Was T. Rex Relative
The 29-foot-long predator reigned over the U.S. West about 75 million years ago, rare dinosaur fossils from New Mexico reveal.
Two nearly complete skeletons of the new species, Bistahieversor sealeyi—eversor means "destroyer" in Latin—were discovered in the desolate badlands of New Mexico's Bisti/De-na-zin Wilderness.
A "teenager's" skeleton was found between 1989 and 1990, and an adult was unearthed in 1998, researchers say. The fossils had been on display at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History until recently, so scientists hadn't previously had a chance to study the remains.
Discovering that B. sealeyi is a primitive Tyrannosaurus rex relative—and, like T. rex, part of a group called the tyrannosauroids—is a "big deal," said study co-author Thomas Carr, director of the Carthage College Institute of Paleontology in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
"In and of itself, a relatively complete dinosaur from 75 million years
