New eutyrannosaur preprint version

[Franco Sancarlo]

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.10.693447v3

A new version of the preprint on the late Maastrichtian eutyrannosaurs is up. This includes a matrix of over 800 characters (by Franco who continues to be work on it, with more alternative processing procedures on the way). The results verify that Bloody Mary and Stygivenator are close to one another and are not in Nanotyrannus, nor are Jane and Zuni that look to form their own little group. This partly agrees with Nick L whose upcoming study (as we said earlier, we are not the only one's currently publishing on BM now that it has been published in the technical literature) puts BM in S. molnari. What Nano itself actually is is up for grabs because of no postcrania, could be short legged Dryptosaurus or something like that. The priority in constructing the revised names is to make them flow well when pronounced, with Stygi & BM both venators, and Jane and Nano both tyrannus. The Nanotyrannus skull image goes the furthest to restore its actual lateral view depth based on scans published and online, it is quite deep and dramatically different from the very shallow BM which has been tweaked to get the split skull correctly set up. If any wish to suggest items that may need consideration after reading the study please do so, the last round of comments was very helpful. 

We are barely able to mention it in the paper, but Teen Rex that has been being prepped at Denver (don't know if it is still there) looks like the best actual juvenile Tyrannosaurus (13 teeth in the rows) yet, with a nearly complete skull and a fair amount of postcrania.  

Franco Sancarlo

GSPaul

[James Napoli]

Quick note on your phylogenetic matrix: I would consider spelling more of the taxon names correctly. 

While Nick Longrich has, for reasons unclear to me (we have never interacted) blocked me on social media, I have been sent screenshots of his 'criticisms' of our referral of NCSM 40000 to Nanotyrannus lancensis and all of them are misinterpretations of broken features. Odd that the vast number of supposed differences between NCSM 40000 and N. lancensis are misinterpreted breaks, no?

[Mickey Mortimer]

I love Compsognhatus. It was the size of a chikecn. 

Mickey Mortimer

[Milo Gaillard]

Compsognathus is cute, but I like Deinonychus more. It was the size of a large gray wolf, my favorite animal (in case the pfp didn't make it obvious enough).

-Milo Gaillard

[Tim Williams]

In general, this preprint could benefit from a thorough proofread.  I think the word "speciose" (= including multiple species) is intended rather than "specious" (= superficially plausible, but wrong) - as in "small _Canis_ are increasingly specious."  

As for the abbreviations ETRH and MTTH (both rather clunky), is it really necessary to harp on how obvious it is that multiple tyrannosaur taxa exist in the "TT-zone"?  Not only does it come across as triumphalist, but it adds to the word count of an already lengthy manuscript.

The term "eutyrannosaur" pops up a lot in the manuscript (including in the title); but as far as I can tell, nowhere does it state what a "eutyrannosaur" actually is.  Clade Eutyrannosauria is not mentioned at all, and the paper that named and defined Eutyrannosauria (Delcourt and Grillo, 2018) is not cited.  Also, is a "baso-eutyrannosaur" the same as a "basal eutyrannosaur"? - both are used.  This highlights the problems of using quasi-taxonomic grades like "baso-eutyrannosaur" (unique to GSP publications) alongside phylogenetic taxonomy.  

Finally, Tyrannosaurinae should be attributed to Osborn 1906, not Olshevsky, Ford & Yamamoto 1995.

[Gregory Paul]

Thanks for the items!  

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.

[Jaime Headden]

And ... let's be honest here. For the typical English-speaking audience, "TT-zone" said aloud is rather TTlating. And if you can hear that word, you now know why.

Cheers,

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Jaime A. Headden

The Bite Stuff: http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth" - P. B. Medawar (1969)

[Milo Gaillard]

LOL!

-Milo

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 1, 2026, at 20:23, Jaime Headden <jaimeh...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Tim Williams]

Gregory Paul via Dinosaur Mailing Group <DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the items!  

Don't mention it.  I mean literally don't mention it.  I don't want my name within cooee of this paper.  

Another gripe is Larsonvenatorini.  It's mentioned variously as both a subfamily and a tribe; and on p24 (where it's said to be a tribe) it's given a diagnosis, but no definition.  So the same problem as Utetitaninae.

Mickey Mortimer <therizino...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I love Compsognhatus. It was the size of a chikecn. 

_Terathoponeus_ weighed about 300 chikecns.

[Mickey Mortimer]

"_Terathoponeus_ weighed about 300 chikecns."

Sounds like the plot of a My Little Pony episode- Te rath o Poneus. Will the Mane Six survive teh wrath of Poneus? Tune in next week to find out!

More seriously, figuring different cladograms for New Technology Search and Traditional Search doesn't make any sense, as one is more parsimonious and it's not like these are different criteria for analyzing data like Parsimony vs. Bayesian or Equal Weights vs. Implied Weights. The matrix is small enough that if you run each method enough times, it should get the same result. I wonder if the authors knew to go to Settings > Memory in TNT and increase the maximum number of trees so that the initial ones found in the first hundred results aren't thought to be the shortest. They don't explain their methods past "The analyses were conducted using TNT version 1.6 (Goloboff & Morales 2023) using the New Technology search and Traditional Search (AppendFig. 1)", so who knows.

Mickey Mortimer

[Ethan Schoales]

Tim, where did you get that weight estimate from?  

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[Tim Williams]

Ethan Schoales <ethan.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Tim, where did you get that weight estimate from?  

Carr et al. (2011) gave a mass estimate of 667 kg, based on the femur.  Yun (2022) came up with a substantially higher value (~1000 kg), based on the frontal.  I also know the _T. currie_ specimen (holotype) is subadult, and so not fully grown.

[Gregory Paul]

Ha, Jaime is such the kidder! 

But seriously, a little background. When working on the Paul et al. 2022 paper there was a significant technical terminology quirk. Over lo those many years the paleoestablishment had not come up with a simple, easy to cite term that covers the entire set of formations dominated by your Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. You know, the Hell Creek, Lance, Denver, Ferris, Scollard, Frenchman and let's not forget the Willow Creek. Which was kinda odd when you think about it. Had such a handy dandy term been on hand would have used that, but none was (correct me if I am wrong about that). So yet again it was up to me to produce a solution -- much of what I do is fill in the gaps left by the dinosaur bunch. Lancian does not work because that covers the entire continent. People would say Hell Creek or whatever when addressing issues more specific to certain issues in the region, but that is but a portion of the ancient habitat and does not apply to say an edmontosaur from the Scollard. The Tyrannosaurus species issue was all over the place, and a general term is needed for the complex in any case, so what to call it? What indeed? Needed something short and spiffy..... 

That's it! The TT-zone! As is obvious a nifty homage to the Twilight Zone. So gives a nice nod to the great Rod Serling while noting the domination by the two Ts back in the day, which is  good thing as all agree no doubt.  

An alternative could have been the TT-complex. But aside from not being as culturally hip, now that I know some read odd things into paleo techno terms, that too could have psychology related connections. 

GSPaul

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[Lee Hall]

I like turtles.

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[Gregory Paul]

As do all:)

GSPaul

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