#ulughbegsaurus

(Type maxilla [bone in the upper jaw] of Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis, from Tanaka et al., 2021)

Meaning of name: Ulughbegsaurus = [Timurid sultan, astronomer, and mathematician] Ulugh Beg’s lizard; uzbekistanensis = from Uzbekistan

Age: Late Cretaceous (Turonian), about 90–92 million years ago

Where found: Bissekty Formation, Navoiy, Uzbekistan

How much is known: Several partial maxillae (bones in the upper jaw).

Notes: Ulughbegsaurus was a carcharodontosaur, a group of large, carnivorous theropods that also includes Giganotosaurus and Acrocanthosaurus. Estimated to have been 7.5–8 m long, Ulughbegsaurus was not one of the biggest carcharodontosaurs. However, it is the largest predator known from the Bissekty Formation, surpassing the size of tyrannosauroids and dromaeosaurids that have been previously described from the same horizon.

It's roughly 90 million years ago, the Cretaceous period, and continents have begun to rift apart.

A small tyrannosaur — roughly the size of a large horse — peers through the ferns in what would now be Uzbekistan, listening for any sign of prey to tear into with its blade-like teeth.

But the tyrannosaur's time hasn't come yet; there's still a larger apex predator ruling the jungle — a previously unknown species that may become another piece in the puzzle of how tyrannosaurs took over and ruled Asia and North America for millennia.

Darla Zelenitsky, associate professor of dinosaur paleobiology at the University of Calgary, worked with researchers from Canada, Japan and Uzbekistan to identify a new species of carcharodontosaur — large, carnivorous dinosaurs with shark-like teeth. They announced their discovery in the Royal Society Open Science journal on Tuesday.

The new species, Ulughbegsaurus (pronounced oo-LOOG-bek-SAW-rus), was named after 15th century astronomer and mathematician Ulugh Beg, who lived in the region.

Like an early tyrannosaur, this carnivore would have walked on two legs, with a large head, short forelimbs and sharp claws. But that's where the similarities ended. An Ulughbegsaurus would have weighed around 1,000 kilograms and stretched more than 7.5 metres from nose to tail.

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Ulughbegsaurus

Ulughbegsaurus (що означає “рептилія Улугбега”) – рід кархародонтозаврових динозаврів-теропод із пізньокрейдової формації Біссекти, Узбекистан. Типовий вид – Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis.

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