Moros is a genus of small tyrannosauroid theropod that lived during the Late Cretaceous period on what is now Utah, United States. It contains a single species, M. intrepidus. Moros represents the earliest known diagnostic tyrannosauroid material from the Cretaceous of North America by a margin of about 15 million years.
Etymology[]
The name, Moros, means doom or fate. The specific name, intrepidus meaning intrepid. This refers to the larger tyrannosaurs to come later down the line. The name means 'harbinger of doom' or 'harbinger of fate' in full.
Discovery and naming[]
Right femur in various views
Moros was first discovered at the Stormy Theropod site located in Emery County in the U.S. state of Utah. Paleontologist had been researching the area for ten years when in 2013 limb bones were seen jutting out of a hillside by Lindsay Zanno, prompting the excavation. The bones were described as a new species in February 2019 by Lindsay E. Zanno, Ryan T. Tucker, Aurore Canoville, Haviv M. Avrahami, Terry A. Gates, and Peter J. Makovicky.
The holotype, NCSM 33392 , was found in the lower Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation dating to the Cenomanian. The layer has a maximum age of 96.4 million years. The holotype consists of a right hindlimb. It contains the femur, shin, second and fourth metatarsals, and third and fourth phalanx of the fourth toe. Lines of arrested growth indicate that it represents a six- or seven-year-old subadult individual, approaching its maximum size. Additionally, two premaxillary teeth have been referred to the species, specimens NCSM 33393 and NCSM 33276 . also represents the oldest diagnostic material for a tyrannosauroid from the Cretaceous of North America by a margin of about 15 million years with respect to the oldest previously known finds.
Description[]
Size compared to the height of an average human
Moros was a small-bodied, cursorial tyrannosauroid with an estimated weight of about 78 kg (172 lb). The foot bones of Moros were extremely slender, with metatarsal proportions found to be more similar to ornithomimids than to other Late Cretaceous tyrannosauroids.
Life reconstruction of M. intrepidus
Classification[]
In their phylogenetic analyses, Zanno and colleagues in 2019 recovered Moros as a basal pantyrannosaurian alongside Asian taxa from the middle of the Cretaceous such as Xiongguanlong and Timurlengia. This phylogenetic affinity with Asian basal tyrannosauroids suggests that Moros was part of a transcontinental exchange between Asian and North American biotas during the mid-Cretaceous that is well documented in other taxa.
Paleoecology[]
Moros intrepidus lived in North America around 96 million years ago, roaming around the forests and swamps of Utah and the surrounding areas. It survived on a carnivorous diet of small dinosaurs, mammals and lizards, although experts believe it may also have been a scavenger. Among the contemporaries of Moros intrepidus were dinosaurs such as Dromaeosaurus, carnosaur Siats, therizinosaur Nothronychus, ceratopsian Zuniceratops, hadrosaur Jeyawati, fellow primitive tyrannosaurid Suskityrannus, and dubious theropod dinosaurs Richardoestesia along with an undescribed ankylosaur species, turtle species, a crocodyliform, and gar species.
Appearance in other media[]
Jurassic Park[]
- Moros will appear in the movie Jurassic World Dominion.
