Tyrannotitan

Tyrannotitan
	Fossils of Tyrannotitan
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
clade:	Carnosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Theropoda
Superfamily:	Allosauroidea
Family:	†Carcharodontosauridae
Tribe:	†Giganotosaurini
Genus:	†Tyrannotitan; Novas et al., 2005
Binomial name
	Tyrannotitan chubutensis; Novas et al., 2005

Tyrannotitan (Greek for "tyrant titan") was a large theropod that lived in South America during the Early Cretaceous period. It is closely related to other gigantic, carnivorous carcharodontosaurid theropods such as Carcharodontosaurus, Mapusaurus, and Giganotosaurus.

Discovery[]

Tyrannotitan by alexandernevsky — Tyrannotitan hunting

Tyrannotitan was discovered in 2005 at La Jaunita farm, near Chubut province, Argentina. It was unearthed Silvina de Valais, Fernando E.Novas, Pat-vickers and Tom Rich. Only part of the teeth, jaw, spine, pelvis and legs were found which means of the rest of the animal is a mystery.

Fernado named it Tyrannotitan, which means "Tyrant Titan". This monstrously large theropod has also shed new light on the evolution of later carcharodontosaurids, and how they started to become a bit more tyrannosaurid-like in anatomy.

Biology[]

Even though so little of the animal was found, paleontologists were able to work out that this was a big carcharodontosaurid, growing to be 12.2 meters (40 feet) long or more. Its teeth were thicker than those of its relatives, somewhat similar to those seen in tyrannosaurid dinosaurs, and even had short arms like they do.

TyrannotitanSwim — Tyrannotitan Swimming

The spine was curved much like a tyrannosaurid, and it's tail was relatively long and powerful (some individuals theorize that it might be designed for swimming) and likely counter-acted the heavy skull to help keep it balanced and from falling over onto its face. It arguably ranks among the largest of all, similar in size some of the other contenders for the largest carnivorous dinosaur title. (Spinosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus.

Apart from that, most information about the animal is unknown. However, based upon its close relatives like Giganotosaurus, Mapusaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Sauroniops, we can tell that it had a large, probably narrow head that held about 60 teeth in its jaws that were designed to tear through the flesh of it's main prey item; sauropods. It also had long, powerful back legs that were probably capable of running up to 20 mph (32 kmph) (or possibly aid it greatly in swimming if proven to be true). It is unknown if it had any semi-aquatic tendencies.