A FOSSIL found in Victoria, Australia, is the first piece of evidence showing that Tyrannosaurus rex鈥榮 relatives once lived in the southern hemisphere.
Tom Rich of Museum Victoria in Melbourne says the fossil, a pubic bone, once belonged to a member of the tyrannosauroid group. Its prominent bulge, the length of the bone鈥檚 shaft and shape of its tubercle 鈥� a fan-like protrusion at the end of the bone 鈥� is distinctive of the tyrannosauroid lineage (Science, ).
鈥淎s the fossil record improves it鈥檚 becoming more the case that the major dinosaur groups were just about everywhere,鈥� says Rich.
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鈥淚t鈥檚 interesting to find that tyrannosauroids were definitely here in the south,鈥� says Adam Yates, a palaeontologist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, who was not involved in the study.