Albertosaurus
Albertosaurus was a relative of Tyrannosaurus. It was smaller than T. rex and lived a few million years earlier. Albertosaurus walked on two legs and had a large head with sharp, saw-toothed teeth. It had two-fingered hands on short arms. Its long tail provided balance and quick turning. It had powerful back legs with clawed, three-toed feet.
| Albertosaurus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
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| Albertosaurus sarcophagus | |
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| Genus: | Albertosaurus Osborn, 1905
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Albertosaurus was about 30 feet (9 m) long, about 11 feet (3.4 m) tall at the hips, and up to 3 tons in weight (averaging roughly 2500 kg). Its lower jaw had 14 to 16 teeth; the upper jaw had 17-19 teeth. It had one row of teeth in each jaw and had at least one replacement tooth growing up under each working tooth.
Albertosaurus was more lightly built than Tyrannosaurus. Most Albertosaurus specimens were found in a single place.[1]
Compared with the robust tyrannosaurines (such as Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus), albertosaurines had slender builds, with proportionately smaller skulls and longer bones of the lower leg (tibia) and feet (metatarsals and phalanges).[2] That suggests they were taking smaller or younger prey than Tyrannosaurus, and were able to run faster to do so.
Albertosaurus Media
Holotype specimen CMN 5600
The Red Deer River near Drumheller, Alberta. Almost three-quarters of all Albertosaurus remains have been discovered alongside the river, in outcrops like the ones on either side of this picture.
Teeth from Dry Island and Drumheller, Royal Tyrrell Museum
Albertosaurus sarcophagus skull (original). From the Horseshoe Canyon Formation at Dunphy, Alberta. Specimen number TMP 1985 098 0001. On display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Alberta, Canada.
Gorgosaurus, which was described as a second species of Albertosaurus, A. libratus by Dale Russell.
Size comparison of the Albertosaurus sarcophagus specimen ROM 807 (A. "arctunguis"). Based on a skeletal by randomdinos. Human silhouette from
- Silhouette of man standing and facing forward.svg.
Skull cast at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen
Life reconstruction of Albertosaurus sarcophagus
Cast in the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado
A graph showing the hypothesized growth curves (body mass versus age) of four tyrannosaurids, with Albertosaurus drawn in red
References
- ↑ Erickson, Gregory M.; Currie, Philip J.; Inouye, Brian D.; Winn, Alice A. (2010). "A revised life table and survivorship curve for Albertosaurus sarcophagus based on the Dry Island mass death assemblage". Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 47 (9): 1269–1275. Bibcode:2010CaJES..47.1269E. doi:10.1139/e10-051.
- ↑ Currie, Philip J. 2003. Cranial anatomy of tyrannosaurids from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta (PDF). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 48 (2): 191–226.