Photograph courtesy David Baccadutre, New Mexico Museum of
Natural History and Science Published January 28, 2010 A
29-foot-long (9-meter-long) "destroyer" dinosaur once reigned
over the Wild West, according to a new study of a fossil T. rex
relative found in New Mexico. Two nearly complete skeletons of
the new species, Bistahieversor sealeyi—eversor means
"destroyer" in Latin—were discovered in the desolate badlands of
New Mexico's Bisti/De-na-zin Wilderness. A "teenager's" skeleton
was found between 1989 and 1990, and an adult was unearthed in
1998, researchers say. The fossils had been on display at the
New Mexico Museum of Natural History until recently, so
scientists hadn't previously had a chance to study the remains.
Discovering that B. sealeyi is a primitive Tyrannosaurus rex
relative—and, like T. rex, part of a group called the
tyrannosauroids—is a "big deal," said study co-author Thomas
Carr, director of the Carthage College Institute of Paleontology
in Kenosha, Wisconsin. "In and of itself, a relat