Tyrant Files || History of Discovery

[Music] over the history of life on earth many top predators have come and gone many with razor-sharp teeth deadly curved talons and spines of all calibers these predators were at the highest place on their food chains these animals only feed members of their own species they were the most formidable living weapons to ever evolve in their place and time all of these animals were similar yet vastly different from one another some were insects reptiles or birds the biggest parallel amongst them being their innate ability to efficiently take down their prey and fight for survival however the life of these top predators was not a never-ending cycle of kill or be killed for there is downtime and critical life events that shaped the individual animal into their own creature the most well known of these top predators was a culmination of hundreds of millions of years of evolution underneath the iron claw of other top predators this predators ancestral stocks survived in smaller ecological niches until the sauropod killers went extinct they took charge and became some of the most powerful meat-eating animals to ever evolve on land the queen of these animals is known far and wide throughout the world by human beings of every age creed ethnicity or education level ever since this creature was discovered nearly 100 years ago it has captured the public's imagination in new and terrifying ways and our understanding of its biology and place in the vast universe continues to burgeon and take on a life of its own so entrenched in our collective psyche and pop culture norms that it is sometimes hard to overlook the raw power and obviously savage nature of such a primordial beast for this monster was surely no monster but just an animal that lived as most do simply and meaningfully this beast of absolute grandeur is the one and only the tyrant Lizard King the Tyrannosaurus [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the first episode in a very special miniseries about Tyrannosaurus as one of the most well studied and well understood members of dinosauria or any pre Pleistocene fauna in general there is a lot to cover on Tyrannosaurus so let us not dilly-dally this enormous beast has a lot of information to back up what our image of it is in today's scientific academia the first remains of Tyrannosaurus were not attributed to the nomenclatural name of Tyrannosaurus Rex the remains of Tyrannosaurus were also discovered during the 1800s and the bone Wars therefore the paleontological rules and procedures had not yet been refined with few exceptions every single fossil with even the slightest difference to any other fossil was determined to be of a different animal regardless of age and location secondarily the paleontologists of the time especially Edward drinker cope and auth Niall Charles Marsh strived to find a name as many new taxa as they could regardless of whether or not the animals they were finding had already been found fame and notoriety is what they sought the point of this matter is that the first remains of Tyrannosaurus were not named Tyrannosaurus Rex and in fact many of the remains though fragmentary would have been just complete enough according to some scientists to be the first binomial name attributed to the remains to be later coined Tyrannosaurus in effect were it not for the fearsome presence the name Tyrannosaurus Rex has we'd be calling the animals something very different geologist artist writer and paleontologist Arthur Lakes discovered teeth in 1874 near Golden Colorado these teeth were given neither scientific name nor description dubbed fossil saurian tooth numerical designation YTM for 192 these underestimated fragments and sketches of the teeth by local civic leader Edward birth aunt were sent to the famed paleontologists off Neil Charles Marsh of the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven can occurred where they remain to this day having never seen a formal description until it was re-examined by paleontologists Kenneth carpenter of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in 2002 and determined not only to come from the infamous taps on t-rex but also to be the very first fossil remains ever found of the beast an unremarkable discovery there were turn out to be the first clues that paleontology was onto something something big something with teeth really really big teeth many years passed until more material was uncovered in 1888 geologist George L cannon had found pieces of jawbone in at Denver Basin the same locale as the first teeth fossils unfortunately the fossils he saw or found are unavailable to us for unknown reasons but that was the end of the tyrannosaurids without proper descriptions for from this point in history forward plenty more fossil remains would be recovered both fragmentary and nearly complete in 1890 and 1891 paleontologist John bel Hatcher found a good assemblage of parts and pieces all in all he found a partial right metatarsal left femur tibia partial fibula and a right ileum in 1896 these fossil remains were analyzed by author Neil Charles Marsh who determined them to belong to the taxon ornithol - grandis he saw the large size of these remains and determined them to belong to an owner thermistor that was one of the destructive enemies of the herbivorous Saratov today it is interesting to note just how similar some of the basic skeletal anatomy of Tyrannosaur a day is to honor the mama Soria a good indication of their genetic affinities but we'll come back to that notion a bit later we must go backwards in time just a tad in order to go further as the story of Tyrannosaurus brings us to paleontologist Edward drinker cope infamous rival of off Neil Charles Marsh in 1892 cope had found a few vertebral fragments about the same area as Hatcher had found his fragmentary fossils thus the first new scientific classification was given to pieces they would eventually be determined to belong to t-rex koke designated his vertebrae mana spondylus gigas which translates to giant porous vertebra he thought these vertebrae belonged to an Agatha mid dinosaur what we now know as a ceratopsian however that was soon to be proven false what followed was a large influx of partial mains that would help to focus in on what this beast actually was in 1900 Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History sent paleontologist Barnum brown outs to the same areas of Wyoming that were explored by John Bell Hatcher in search of the remains of Triceratops for display within the museum however on top of bits of Triceratops Barnum brown and his crew discovered much more in Wyoming brown and company found a 13 percent complete disarticulated fossilized skeleton of a large carnivorous dinosaur what they described as Ceratosaurus like an appearance what was undoubtedly a theropod dinosaur and what paleontologists at the time would call a connoisseur these remains were named Dynamis soros imperio psious the powerful imperial reptile and boy what a monster this creature would have been that is if the remains found were really of the animal it was thought to belong to unfortunately for us there was more than just her ana soros remains found in this specimen which is why the people who found it thought it was like nothing we'd ever seen before the specimen included lower jaws teeth cervical and dorsal vertebrae ribs part of the hips and pieces of limbs from a carnivorous dinosaur but also dermal plates and teeth from an ankylosaur now considered a notice or as well as the teeth and jaws of a hadrosaur the frill of a ceratopsian fish scales and a multitude of indeterminable fossil remains was born named it dynamo soros due to the osteoderms found with it which were thought to cover the animal in life before it was found that they belong to a completely different animal essentially the finders thought they discovered what hasbro would eventually call the ultima soros in 1902 another skeleton had been found by Barnum brown in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana this specimen went on to be designated cm 9 3 8 0 Osborne named this creature Tyrannosaurus Rex the tyrant Lizard King however Henry Fairfield Osborn used both the specimen of Dynamis Oris and Tyrannosaurus in the same paper describing them both essentially as two distinct organisms it was not until 1906 that he synonym eyes them both into the same taxon as they both showed signs of belonging to the same kind of animal thus the internationally acclaimed and culturally pervasive name that sparks a sense of awe and the world ermand in the world was born Tyrannosaurus Rex [Music] according to the rules of scientific nomenclature the first name attributed to fossil remains will always be held in first for God therefore technically Tyrannosaurus Rex should be invalid and the name first given to the remains of this animal would be its true name malice spondylus gigas especially since neither of the two taxa were formally synonymous mana spondylus huh doesn't really have the same ring to it does it well thanks to the perpetuated use of Tyrannosaurus Rex it has taken priority as an omen protect 'm or protected name Barnum brown continued his search for more Tyrannosaurus specimens in 1908 he found a 48 percent complete skeleton of the animal in Dry Creek Montana which included the most complete skull yet found this specimen was designated a m and H 5 0 to 7 and was the most complete mounted specimen to be displayed for quite some time described by Osbourne in 1912 and 1916 the find consisted of mostly complete skull cervical dorsal and sacral vertebrae 18 caudal vertebrae Chevron's cervical ribs dorsal ribs in e'er Ischia and pubis this specimen having much of its spinal column intact gave a better image of what the animal was like and would later be a clue that it belonged to a separate family aside from the Jurassic connoisseurs the paleontologists of the time locked all theropod into by 1912 8 skeletons have been recovered not many more skeletons were found with his greater frequency until the 1980s as had been found up to the 1910s what follows is a comprehensive list of all fossil specimens preferable to Tyrannosaurus Rex in the order in which they were found Huxley 1946 completion 16% in 1946 paleontologist Charles Sternberg found fragments of Tyrannosaurus outside the town of Huxley along the Red Deer River Alberta unfortunately he only found bits and pieces and concluded that had been washed away without enough left behind to justify excavation found within the scholar deformation paleontologist Philip Currie then of provincial Museum of Alberta went back to the locale and found the rest of the specimen in 1981 at 16 percent complete curie found a small fragment of the skull known as the postorbital as well as neck and back vertebrae various pieces of the pelvis and bits of the legs and feet Harley 1966 completion 12% in 1966 paleontologist Harley Gurbani along with his team from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County discovered a fragmentary skeleton with a somewhat complete skull in the Hell Creek Formation of Jordan Montana the remains included the right scapula coracoid ulna both Ischia right femur tibia right foot and two phalanges from the left foot designated Harley this skull was the largest known at the time and the largest to be displayed a rather mature individual mor 0:08 1960s msu geologist phil mechanis found fragments of a Tyrannosaurus skull and bits of the vertebrae in the late 1960s in the Hell Creek Formation it had undergone reconstruction in the 1980s finishing in 2006 this skull designated mor 0:08 is absolutely enormous and potentially larger than that of the famous Seuss specimen though the way in which was reconstructed may be a tad bit flawed thus the true size may be smaller more on that later though it is currently on display at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman Montana mod butte t-rex 1980 completion 27% discovered in 1980 by rancher and amateur fossil collector jennings floatin the mud butte t-rex was found on a discoverers ranch and is mostly skull and spinal material this specimen comes from the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota who resides in a Museum of geology where it has been in a process of being prepared ever since black beauty 1980 completion 28 percent one beautiful morning in 1980 on a fishing trip in Crows Nest past Alberta Jeff Baker and his friend came across something incredibly remarkable the bone of a prehistoric beast this bone belongs to black beauty an adult Tyrannosaurus with a 28 percent complete skeleton excavation began in 1982 and this is one of the most well known Tyrannosaurus mounts alongside sue and the American Museum of Natural History centerpiece the specimen is jet-black due to the type of minerals that leached into the bones during fossilization sampson 1987 the completion 40 percent this specimen was originally found on private land in South Dakota in 1987 by Michael zimis guide him and other paleontologists had initially determined it to have washed away without a trace Allen and Robert Dittrich rediscovered this specimen in 1992 after relocating it as well as finding a nearly complete and undistorted skull it was put up for auction in 2000 under the name Zed Rex and eventually sold in 2001 at which time it was renamed Sampson it was prepared by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 2004 which finished in 2006 and was then sold again in 2009 and then put on an educational tour this rather complete specimen reached 39 feet in length stan 1987 completion 63% stance Ackerson found the remains of a Tyrannosaurus near Buffalo South Dakota in the Hell Creek Formation currently housed at the Black Hills Institute of geological research it is one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus specimens ever found it consists of a nearly complete skull most of the spinal column ribs pelvic girdle and much of the arms and legs as one of the most complete specimens it has helped build on the understanding of this animal and has been cast and reproduced for museums all over the world you've probably met Stan without even knowing it Hwang chol 1988 completion 46% world--for mound paleontologist Jack Horner helped excavate and describe a Tyrannosaurus specimen out of an island in a Charles M Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana the specimen was discovered by Rancher Cathy Wankel while out hiking with her family imagine that you're just out walking along and boom Tyrannosaurus Rex is looking back at you coming from the Hell Creek sediments as many of the other Tyrannosaurus specimens this fossil was helped along its way to its museum by the US Army corpse of Engineers and is technically still owned by them the specimen 46 percent complete consists of the skull one of the most complete forearms ribs vertebrae and much more sooo 1990 completion 73% are yes soon arguably one of the most famous or infamous specimens of Tyrannosaurus ever found depending on how you look at her she has quite a story behind her sue is to date the most complete Tyrannosaurus specimen at 73 percent complete it has been fundamental in our understanding of this animal and it's evolutionary group further expanding our knowledge of the ecosystem in which it lived the story of this specimen is long and dramatic and there has even been a documentary film produced about the history revolving the discovery entitled dinosaur 13 so we won't go into every detail since you should go check that form out but here begins the tale of sue the Tyrannosaurus it all started during the summer of 1990 a paleontological team from the Black Hills Institute of geological research including sue Hendrickson for which the specimen was named and Peter Lawson president of the institution found and excavated a new specimen of Tyrannosaurus sue had found the remains after exploring the nearby cliffs after a season of collecting Edmontosaurus remains Larson and crew thought they had acquired the rights to the fossil since they paid a fee of five thousand dollars to excavate the fossil thinking they had the rights the fossil when they only had the rights to excavator on top of that the owner of the land Maurice Williams belongs to the Sioux tribe and the tribe claimed they owned the lands that fossil was on the land in which the fossils was found turned out to be owned by the United States Department of Interior so since the fossils belonged to the USDA the FBI and National Guard had to get involved raided the site in which the fossils were being prepared in a swat-style attack that cost the federal government 1 million dollars and placed the fossils within a warehouse at the South Dakota School of Mines which may have been dangerous and damaging to the condition of the fossils it was taken back by Williams and promptly sold to the highest bidder at an auction now we're not going to make any political cases here on the expeditioners discovery guilt since we are here for the science not opinion but come on all fossils especially with inherent importance to our collective understanding of our past should belong to no one but science for that is why we strive to continue looking for more fossils for the more we finds the bigger and brighter our image of the past is it is our natural-born right as human beings to know about learn and observe these precious remains that isn't to say there aren't any gray lines within this whole subject which could fill an entire video on its own so we'll leave it at that fortunately for sue and science in general the Chicago Field Museum a fine institution of science and learning got help from Disney McDonald's and disorder charities to acquire the find to refrain from allowing it to be lost to science forever it was sold for a grand total of eight million three hundred and sixty two thousand five hundred dollars seven point six million of which went tax-free to Maurice Williams unfortunately and unjustly Peter Larson was sentenced to two years in federal prison which is four times the minimum amount required for the violation of the 1906 antiquities Act which it technically didn't violate anyway but what a fine sue really is the remains found include a complete skull much of the cervical dorsal Sackville and caudal vertebrae cervical and dorsal ribs both scapula and coracoid the wishbone or farkula much of the right arm a complete pelvic girdle both of the legs and much of the feet enough material to give a much more complete image of the animal in general not only was it the most complete arena Saurus ever discovered but also the largest at 42 feet long and 12 feet tall scotty 1991 completion 40% + during the tail end of the summer of 1991 high school principal robert Gephardt accompanied Royal Saskatchewan Museum paleontologist to the Frenchmen River Valley it took him only half a day to find a tooth and eventually vertebra that were unmistakably from a Tyrannosaurus and thus Scotty the Tyrannosaurus was discovered at more than 40 percent complete this specimen is one of the largest and most complete as well with much of the skeleton having been found and it represents a mature individual of 40 feet dha'fi 1993 completion 30% this specimen was scattered over an area of one acre boos rather complete considering found in 1993 by Stan sakura-san who also found this downed specimen it had a 70% complete skull and represents an immature individual of roughly adolescent age it took five collecting seasons to recover all of the specimens material of which much of the post cranial skeleton is known Peck's racks 1997 completion 60% found in 1997 hex rex comes from you guessed it the Hell Creek Formation of Montana it was an adult when it died and was rather complete it is one of the only specimens of Tyrannosaurus to have an intact metacarpal three preserved with this remains Bucky 1998 completion 40% found in 1998 by a rancher and rodeo cowboy Bucky de flinger hence the name this Tyrannosaurus specimen is another very complete one der flinger found the specimen at the age of 20 while breaking in a young horse he came across a toe bone which led to the rest of the skeleton a skeleton which was easy to prepare an excavate since it was encased in soft rock matrix this specimen showcases a young adult not quite small enough to truly be a juvenile at 34 feet in length this specimen also has one of the most well-preserved and complete spinal columns ever found for the genus from the base of the skull past the pelvis as well as a nearly full set of gastrula or belly ribs and an ulnar and as if this fines didn't have enough first it is also the first specimen to have a preserved wishbone also known as a fur cooler which is a shared characteristic of most if not all theropod dinosaurs and their modern descendants it's really awesome to find one in any given specimen since most if not all likely had them you just don't get to see them very often tinker 1998 the case of the tinkerer specimen lies in similar muddy waters as sue unfortunately and much of the fossils remain in a warehouse yet to be fully studied the remains of this juvenile Tyrannosaurus were found by fossil prospector Mark Eastman who bought the rights the fossils from the landowner and promptly sold them to a group of fossil hunters led by Ron filthy off free Theo and his team continued the excavation however the land in which the specimen was found belonged to Rancher Gary Gilbert but the land owned by Gilbert was on leased him by the county and once the county realized the importance of the fossil find and more importantly for people like that how much money such a find could reel in the county officials claimed that freethought had illegally taken the fossils out of their land but he had previously acquired a lease on the land and the rights to excavation so it was ruled that the county did not have the rights that they thought they had however due to the least taken out on the land thrifty off still has to give ten percent of his profits to the county some of the skeleton remains still within the earth and those pieces that have been on earth are locked away in bankruptcy proceedings so it will likely be some time before science gets to understand poor ole tinker beer x2000 completion 37% the beer ex specimen is a strange case a strange case indeed although not the most complete at 37% it holds a handful of intriguing and technique changing observations that have helped progress the science of paleontology to some degree this specimen was discovered by fossil preparator Bob Hartmann in 2000 in Hell Creek Formation of Montana in Charles M Russell National Wildlife Refuge much of the overall skeleton was found well-preserved though not much of it complete the entire skull was found in pieces and much of the torso was recovered as well the marrow cavity of one of the leg bones of the specimen was intentionally exposed due to Mary Schweitzer's breaking of the fossil for shipping after being examined it was found that the inside preserved what appeared to be fossilized soft tissue and upon further inspection fossilized blood vessels and cells what a beautiful thing we can see what the blood of an ancient animal looked like a pristine find at the time of this particular discovery it was hypothesized that it could either be fossilized blood and soft tissue or pur mineralized biofilm produced by bacteria that had been digesting and breaking down the specimen prior to fossilization however the debate was put to rest in 2016 when Schweitzer itaú analyzed the soft tissue and found it to be medullary bone medullary bone is a very special type of bone produced within the bones of buzz when they're ready to produce the eggs as a backup reservoir of calcium which makes up the shell of the eggs this study having proven this soft tissue to be medullary bone has given us the first and only tried-and-true example of the gender of a prehistoric animal we now know that B Rex was a female Tyrannosaurus how amazing simply wonderful but this means that we can sex any fossil theropod and maybe even all other types of dinosaur in the similar way that is if the animal has this type of tissue preserved through fossilization within its remains we know for sure it is female why Rex 2002 completion 38% found by policemen and amateur fossil collector Dan wells and landowner Don Warrick this specimen is quite unique like most and pretty much all Tyrannosaurus specimens found in the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota it was excavated and prepared by the Black Hills Institute this specimen was one of the first to be shown excavated live on the Institute's website something more organizations need to do to be honest this specimen consists of two nearly complete legs and feet and pieces of the skull and torso a rare find for Tyrannosaurus specimens is complete feet or more than just bits and pieces and this specimen had this another unique thing about the Warrick specimen is its preservation of skin impressions that's right we can get a better image of what the outside of Tyrannosaurus looked like the twelve patches of skin impressions preserve scales from the underside of the animals tail but they look more like the bumpy skin of chickens and rounded scales of gila monsters and leopard geckos rather than the keeled scales of the Squa meats or the osteotome armor of crocodilians thomas 2003 completion 37% Thomas the Tyrannosaurus was found by schoolteacher and amateur fossil collector Bob curry in 2003 the specimen was found in a Hell Creek Formation of Carter County Montana and was excavated and prepared by a crew from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County where the specimen remains to this day 37 percent complete the specimen contains complete legs and feet many parts and pieces of the skull and an assortment of ribs and vertebrae ivan 2007 completion 39% to 60% found by alan kawasaki in 2007 this specimen is another of the more complete ones with the most complete tail of any known Tyrannosaurus specimen with only three vertebrae missing this specimen was likely 18 years of age at death and represents a large individual since no scientific analysis has been done on this specimen and the specimen itself shares some interesting morphologies it is uncertain if it truly represents an individual of the species Tyrannosaurus Rex it may be found to be a new species of Tyrannosaurus but Steven king of the Museum of world treasures in Wichita Kansas has taken the job of describing a specimen those at the Museum of world treasures have asserted that Ivan is indeed a Tyrannosaurus Rex but it is still as yet not known for sure Tristan 2010 completion 56% this Tyrannosaurus specimen was found in the lower Hell Creek Formation of Montana by commercial paleontologist Craig PO Pfister in 2010 the specimen was then sold to a Danish investment banker who fortunately for science agreed to loan it to the museum for an attack on day of Berlin it remained there for no less than three years and has been analyzed by the museum staff since then tricks 2013 dating to 66 million years ago this specimen of Tyrannosaurus was found by team of paleontologists from The Naturalist biodiversity centre of the Netherlands it is a very complete specimen with most of the remains being preserved it remains in the only open room of the museum after which it will go on international tour while the museum fixes up its renovation at which point it will return by late 2018 toughed love Rex 2016 completion 20% the tuft loved Rex was found you guessed it in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana the specimen was rather complete with much of the skull intact however what makes a truly unique is its size it was not fully grown for it was only 15 years at the time of death but has been estimated to be around 40 feet in length meaning it would have outgrown both tricks and Sue the largest and oldest Tyrannosaurus specimens found to date and that - the handful of incredibly fragmentary finds is the complete list of Tyrannosaurus specimens found to date quite an impressive list there are now more than 50 known specimens quite some ways from the days of only 15 what was once thought to be a rare animal has shown itself to be quite common in its preservation even though their fossils are still rather rare to find thus why their price tag is so large now that we have gone over the history of our knowledge of this creature how it was found who found it where it was found now comes the hard part piecing all of the evidence together to get an idea of what Tyrannosaurus was like when it was alive how it hunted how it reproduced at how it died next time on the expeditioners discovery guild we will take you on a multiple part journey to explore the ins and outs of Tyrannosaurus we take a look into the family history of this impressive genus looking at how it got to the top of the food chain and where it could have gone were it not for the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago in tyrunt files family tree to watch the rest of this series head over to the expeditioners discovery guild enterprises channel where the upcoming episodes of tyrant files will be uploaded this channel is a great place to watch all kinds of other paleontology related videos too and they also cover many other subjects such as geology cryptozoology xenobiology and speculative evolution if you like the kind of content we make here you're sure to enjoy edge 2 so be sure to go and check it out if you haven't already it's a wonderful community of people who share the passion for and fascination with the natural world that we have on this channel [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Ben G Thomas

Views: 435,734

Rating: 4.8735085 out of 5

Keywords: Biology, Science, Paleontology, Palaeontology, Dinosaurs, Animals, Nature, Wildlife, Ben, Thomas, Prehistory, Anatomy, Fossil, Bones, t rex, tyrannosaur

Id: ELiG04MfTz8

Length: 36min 1sec (2161 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 05 2018