It might not have had a starring role in any movies or rock bands named after it, but scientists now believe there was a species of mega-predator that roamed Earth at the top of the food chain for millions of years before Tyrannosaurus.
It's called Siats meekerorum, and a team of researchers led by Lindsay Zanno, a North Carolina State University paleontologist, and Peter Makovicky, from Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, discovered the dinosaur's partial skeleton in Utah in 2008. They announced their findings last week, calling it the third largest carnivore ever discovered in North America.
See also: Dinosaur With Huge Nose Discovered in Utah
"They were equal and in some cases possibly surpassing the size of T. Rex," Zanno said. "It wasn't until they went extinct that tyrannosaurs were really able to take over those mega-predator roles and evolve into things like T. Rex."
Zanno said this discovery has helped scientists fill in a gap of knowledge about the types of dinosaurs that existed between two better-known periods — the Jurassic period, which ended 145 million years ago, and the Late Cretaceous period, which ended 66 million years ago.
Check out the video above for more on Siats meekerorum.
BONUS: 10 Astonishing New Species Discovered in 2012
We all know Flickr houses a treasure trove of beautiful images. But this year, we discovered it's also nature's attic-box of undiscovered lifeforms.
Wildlife photographer Hock Ping Guek posted a picture of a fly with patches of color on its wings. Turns out, that fly was actually a never-before-seen species of lacewing. A couple months later, entomologist Shaun Winterton spotted the picture online, identifying it as an entirely new species, which was named Semachrysa jade.
The findings were published in the journal ZooKeys. Both Guek and Winterton received credit for the discovery.
Image via OrionMystery.Blogspot.com
Astronauts dedicate their lives to studying the space beyond our planet. So it's not every day that they make major discoveries here on Earth.
But that's exactly what happened when a group of astronauts from the European Space Agency went to a training seminar in Italy. While honing their geology, meteorology and cataloging skills in the CAVES training program, the group discovered a new crustacean in the caves outside of Sardinia. The new species is closely related to land-dwelling woodlice, but the major difference is that the new crustacean is aquatic.
Photo courtesy of the European Space Agency
Even the arachnophobe can admit that this rare spider is blessed with Mother Nature's finest genes. The iridescent blue Pterinopelma sazimai, commonly known as "Sazima's Tarantula," was found in Brazil. While this isn't the first blue tarantula, Pterinopelma sazimai is striking because its survival is so threatened. Along with its susceptibility to Brazil's tarantula pet trade, sazimai lives on an “ecological island” – a habitat perched upon tabletop mountains with high rainfall and different soils.
Photo courtesy of Rogerio Bertani, Instituto Butantan
This year, paleontologists proved they have a sense of humor -- and that they're also extreme fan girls/boys.
A team of paleontologists found a meat-eating dinosaur similar to Tyrannosaurus rex and named it Sauroniops pachytholus, a nod to the Lord of the Rings villain Sauron. The name is pretty much on the mark — standing at 40-feet-tall, the ferocious dinosaur terrified its prey as it roamed North Africa 95 million years ago.
"The idea of a predator that is physically known only as its fierce eye reminded me of Sauron, in particular as depicted in Peter Jackson's movies," the paper's lead author Andrea Cau, of the Museo Geologico Giovanni Capellini in Bologna, Italy, told National Geographic in November.
Illustration courtesy of Andrea Cau
While it wasn't ferocious and terrifying like the Sauroniops pachytholus, the newly discovered Xenoceratops foremostensis was still a massive beast. Weighing in at two tons, the 20-foot-long creature was actually a gentle vegetarian. Like its ceratopsid sisters, it used its horns for self-defense, not hunting. Paleontologists found this 80 million-year-old gentle giant in Canada.
Illustration courtesy of Julius Csotonyi
The other two dinosaurs that made this list were incredibly large, but the Pegomastax africanus is a big discovery in miniature form, even earning the nickname, "Mini Dino."
Dating back 200 million years ago, Pegomastax was actually identified as a new species nearly 30 years ago. But the research was tucked away and forgotten until this year, when Paul C. Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, introduced it in a report published in the online journal ZooKeys.
“I’m embarrassed to say how many years ago that was — 1983,” he told The New York Times in October. “But I was an enterprising graduate student then at the American Museum of Natural History. All the while since then, I wondered if anyone else might spot the creature hiding among the lab drawers.”
Photo via YouTube
This primate species grabbed scientists' attention while they conducted a gibbon study in the mountains of Myanmar. While its official name is Rhinopithecus strykeri, scientists dubbed the snub-nosed animal the "Sneezing Monkey" because it sneezes when it rains.
Photo reconstruction courtesy of Thomas Geissmann, Fauna & Flora International
Chinese paleontologists think they have found a new species of scorpionfly that dates back to the Jurassic era. What makes this scorpionfly especially noteworthy is its camouflage abilities — it uses leaf-like wings to hide among gingko plants. This technique served two purposes: evading predators and catching its own prey. Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia is one of the earliest known examples of mimicry.
Illustration courtesy of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
Jeepers creepers, look at those peepers! Discovered deep in the Chocoan forest in Ecuador, the Imantodes chocoensis is a skinny snake with a penny-sized head and one giant pair of eyes.
But what makes this new snake so interesting is its DNA. Not only did the analysis prove it was a new species, but it also showed that its closest relative lives in the Amazon, all the way on the other side of the Andes.
Photo courtesy of Omar Torres-Carvajal et al.
On first glance, this mushroom looks like a piece of coral. On second glance, this mushroom also looks strangely familiar to a certain sponge-like character who wears pants in the deep sea. And that's exactly what scientists had in mind when they officially named this new sponge-like mushroom Spongiforma squarepantsii, commonly known as "Spongebob Squarepants Mushroom."
According to the study's authors, the plant's unusual shape is "unlike anything else known." But another reason this plant made our list is because of the authors' excellent foresight. When the team first named the mushroom, journal editors rejected it, calling it "frivolous." But the authors pushed back, saying that the name would bring more attention to the new species. Mission accomplished.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Bruns
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Image: Wikimedia Commons, David.Monniaux