New T. Rex fossils suggest that T. Rex was a smart dinosaur before it evolved into a very big one. The fossils of a small T. Rex found in Uzbekistan exhibited it has a big brain.
The fossils of Timurlengia euotica, a horse-sized Tyrannosaurus showed that T. Rex was a smart dinosaur. Timurlengia is estimated to live 90 million years ago in the middle of the Cretaceous period, according to Smithsonian Institute, while the large Tyrannosaurus Rex lived 20 million years later.
Middle Cretaceous period was previously an unknown period, as Paleontologists have not found any fossils of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in that specific era. The finding of Timurlengia fossils, lived 90 million years ago showed that T. Rex was a smart dinosaur before it evolved into a gigantic dinosaur 20 million years later. Further research of the Timulengia fossils revealed that its brain is equal to that of the much larger Tyrannosaurus.
Furthermore, Timurlengia had a similar type of brain and sensory with its successor, the much larger T. Rex. This gives more indication that T.Rex was a smart dinosaur. Timurlengia also had a similar ear that enabled it to hear a low-frequency sound.
The fossils of Timurlengia, which reveal the fact that T. Rex was a smart dinosaur, was found in Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan by a team of Paleontologist led by Hans Sues and Alexander Averianov. Sues is the chair of the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, while Averianov is a senior scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences. They have published their finding in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences..
“Timurlengia was a nimble pursuit hunter with slender, blade-like teeth suitable for slicing through meat,” Sues said about Timurlengia as the evidence of T. Rex was a smart dinosaur. "Clues from the life of Timurlengia allow us to fill in gaps and better understand the life and evolution of other related dinosaurs, like T. rex.”
