Tyrannosaurini from out of Time

Not too long ago, I finished loading supplies into my buckboard and was ready to head on out of town. Of a sudden, I saw Stevia Dolce, the lead baker at the Darwin Ranch. With her was Lotta Lyez who was promoted as an assistant to the cook.

Feeling a mite playful, I asked Lotta if she was going to pick up some Tyrannosaurini, it was between the fettuccine and linguine. She stared a moment, then gave a bit of an "Oh, you!" hand flip as Stevia smiled. The wordplay may not have happened if I had not been reading about the sudden appearance of T. Rex and family.

Tyrannosaurus rex, RGBStock / Kevin Tuck

Some fossil parts were examined again and the critter was renamed because of subtle differences that were found. (I wonder if that's a bit drastic since people, animals, and so on have variations without having to be branded as a different species.) In the report, homage was given to the puny god of evolution, but with a difference. It is known that dinosaurs have no evolutionary history, and these researchers admitted that it's like the Tyrannosaurini line suddenly showed up. Well, that's what biblical creationists have been saying for a mighty long time, old sons.

Publishing in Scientific Reports, an international team of tyrannosaur experts took another look at a partial jaw and skull fragments that were collected from a lakeshore in New Mexico in the 1980s. The team found that overall, it looked like a typical Tyrannosaurus, but subtle differences gave them confidence it deserved a new name—Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis. It’s common to assign new names in the field of paleontology and so is the evolutionary storytelling that this report includes in its discussion of subtle fossil features.

To read it all, see "T. rex Out of Nowhere."