What is Cryptotyrannus

[Vladimír Socha]

Good day to all listmembers! 

Does anyone happen to know more about (so far invalid) tyrannosauroid taxon "Cryptotyrannus"? It is also known as the "Merchantville tyrannosauroid", as its fossils were found in the strata of Merchantville Formation. It was informally named by Brownstein in 2021 and he found it to be the sister taxon of Dryptosaurus aquilunguis (and forming a family Dryptosauridae together). 

It is known from two specimens discovered during the 1970s (holotype YPM VPPU.021795 and the paratype YPM VPPU.022416), but these might come from the same individual. A partial foot bone and one caudal vertebra are known. The holotype was once tentatively assigned to "Coelosaurus" antiquus. Shark bites are present on the fossils of this theropod.

Will more on this interesting tyrannosauroid be published in the near future? Thank you, sincerelly VS.

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Brownstein, C.D. (2021). "Dinosaurs from the Santonian–Campanian Atlantic coastline substantiate phylogenetic signatures of vicariance in Cretaceous North America". Royal Society Open Science. 8 (8): 210127.

 

[Franco Sancarlo]

It's a unnamed tyrannosaurid with 3 bones . We don't know anything about him except for the fact that he is a cousin with dryptosaurus 

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[Thomas Richard Holtz]

PLEASE don't use "Cryptoyrannus" in any posts, social media, etc. The name mistakenly showed up on a figure by Brownstein, but he had changed his mind about giving it a name. Frivolous uses of it in social media can lead to confusion in research in the future.

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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
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[Mickey Mortimer]

It's not like the record of it is going away. I think instead that communication is the best solution, so that future researchers will understand the context of its publication. Even if we were to all pretend "Cryptotyrannus" didn't exist for Brownstein's benefit, years from now they'll be long dead and the pdf will still be circulating, and workers then are going to want to research the name to figure out what it was. This is nothing new for paleontology- for centuries workers have accidentally published names they expected to be valid by then, or mistakenly thought had precedence. You have archaic examples like Therosaurus or Cystosaurus, 80s examples like Zhao's Tibetan taxa whose monograph was rejected by the ICZN, and recent ones like "Cryptotyrannus" and "Borealornis". Mistakes are made, we record those mistakes, and science moves on.

Mickey Mortimer

[Mickey Mortimer]

* rejected by the IVPP. Got my acronyms mixed up...

Mickey Mortimer 

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