Tarbosaurus baatar Archosauria: Saurischia: Theropoda: Tyrannosauridae Locality: Nemagetu, Gobi Desert, southern Mongolia Age: Late Cretaceous (Late Campanian-Early Maastrichtian), 74 million years ago  Archosauria: Saurischia: Theropoda: Tyrannosauridae Locality: Nemagetu, Gobi Desert, southern Mongolia Age: Late Cretaceous (Late Campanian-Early Maastrichtian), 74 million years ago  Archosauria: Saurischia: Theropoda: Tyrannosauridae Locality: Nemagetu, Gobi Desert, southern Mongolia Age: Late Cretaceous (Late Campanian-Early Maastrichtian), 74 million years ago   The carnosaurian theropods include the largest terrestrial predators ever to have inhabited the Earth. They began to evolve as early as the Early Jurassic or even Late Triassic but flourished in the Late Cretaceous. At that time the largest carnosaurs of the genus Tyrannosaurus lived in both what is now Central Asia and North America. The Asian species Tyrannosaurus baatar (which is frequently assigned to its own genus Tarbosaurus) is smaller than its North American relative Tyrannosaurus rex. As the former is some older than the latter, it suggests that the genus could initially have appeared in Asia and then entered the North America through the wide land bridge connecting these continents in the Cretaceous. |
