| Bistahieversor | |
|---|---|
| |
| Restoration | |
| |
| Skull at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Theropoda |
| Superfamily: | Tyrannosauroidea |
| Family: | †Tyrannosauridae? |
| Subfamily: | †Tyrannosaurinae? |
| Genus: | †Bistahieversor Carr & Williamson, 2010 |
| Species: | †B. sealeyi |
| Binomial name | |
| †Bistahieversor sealeyi Carr & Williamson, 2010 | |
Bistahieversor is a Tyrannosaurid from late Cretaceous New Mexico. It is estimated at 24 to 28 feet and weighed 1 or 2 tons. Its skull is shaped differently from other tyrannosaurids like Tyrannosaurs, Albertosaurus, and Daspletosaurus.
History of discovery[]
The first remains now attributed to Bistahieversor, a partial skull and skeleton, were described in 1990 as a specimen of Aublysodon. Additional remains, consisting of the incomplete skull and skeleton of a juvenile, were described in 1992.
Description[]
Material from both adolescent and adult individuals has been found in the Kirtland Formation of New Mexico, United States. Adult Bistahieversor are estimated to have been around 9 meters (30 ft) long, weighing at least a ton. The snout is deep, indicating that the feature is not unique to more derived tyrannosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus. Geographical barriers such as the newly forming Rocky Mountains may have isolated the more southerly Bistahieversor from more derived northern tyrannosaurs.
Classification[]
Bistahieversor is a genus of derived dinosaur currently classified in the subfamily Tyrannosaurinae. It is more derived than Teratophoneus but less derived than Lythronax. It forms the sister taxon of a group including Lythronax, Nanuqsaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Tarbosaurus, and Zhuchengtyrannus.
Paleobiology[]
A 2020 study on the endocranial morphology of Bistahieversor found it resembled tyrannosaurids in several aspects and would likely have behaved similarly.