I never make posts as of late. but today a study released regarding our favorite tyrannosaurine that begins with D. No, not Dynamoterror, the other one. Daspletosaurus!

Well, whats left of it...

In the study by Scherer (link to paper here but much of it is locked), it was found that the three species of Daspletosaurus (and all its undescribed specimens) are of varying relationship to each other. This means that the genus is paraphyletic, and not all species fit under the "Daspletosaurus" umbrella. And there is evidence that the species showed up through anagenesis rather than cladogenesis.

The specifics aren't concrete, but for sure the type species, D. torosus, is essentially at the base of the family tree of Tyrannosaurinae, but not as a direct ancestor to those farther on the tree such as Tarbosaurus, as some did believe. Between them, are the multiple unnamed specimens of varying relationship to each other and the clade.

And D. horneri is housed inside Tyrannosaurini while everyone else isn't.

This is a BIG development, meaning that, in laymans terms, the extra species of Daspletosaurus are gonna have to be renamed eventually. This paper doesn't give any new genus or species names unfortunately, but this should encourage other paleontologists to get to namin'!

Lets ignore the part where in some cladograms they put T. mcraeensis closer to Tarbosaurus than T. rex..... thats a paper for another day lol

So TL;DR: Daspletosaurus is paraphyletic and is no longer considered truly ancestral to other tyrannosaurins. The extra species that aren't D. torosus are gonna need to be renamed to a new genus or something because being paraphyletic isn't gouda. There aren't specifics on where every species will be placed now, but that can be sorted when they get redescribed.