Qianzhousaurus: Beast of the Week

This week we will be looking at an unusual theropod that earned the nickname, "Pinocchio rex".  Check out Qianzhousaurus sinensis!

Qianzhousaurus was a meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now southern China, during the late Cretaceous, between 72 and 66 million years ago.  From snout to tail it measured about twenty nine feet long.  The genus name translates to "Guangzhou Reptile" in reference to Guangzhou, the city near where its bones were discovered.

Life reconstruction of Qianzhousaurus sinensis by Christopher DiPiazza.

Qianzhousaurus was a member of the tyrannosaurid family, so it was actually a very close relative of the famous, Tyrannosaurus rex.  However, Qianzhousaurus was much more lightly built and probably a faster, more agile runner than its more famous relative.  Most notable, however, is Qianzhousaurus' extremely long, narrow snout.  This snout was proportionally longer than that of any other known tyrannosaurid's.  The exact funtion of such a feature is mostly a mystery, but perhaps it specialized in hunting a different sort of prey than what commonly assumed for a tyrannosaurus.  A narrow snout may have helped Qianzhousaurus snap up smaller, faster prey, or continue to pursue small prey even if it was hiding in a burrow or other small space.  The longer snout may also have been an adaptation for scavenging, being able to reach more pieces of meat in hard-to-reach crevices on a carcass other carnivores wouldn't have access to.

Hooded Vultures form Africa use their specialized bills, which are much longer and narrower than those of other vultures, to reach pieces of meat off carcasses their competitors cannot access.  Qianzhousaurus' snout may have served a similar purpose.  (photo taken by me at the Berlin Zoo.)

Inside of Qianzhousaurus' jaws would have been long, sharp teeth, which were certainly ideal for processing meat.  It also had small ridges down the top of its snout and a thin, triangular bony crest right between its eyes which may have been extended with keratin in life to form a decorative structure of some sort for intraspecies display.

Skull of Qianzhousaurus from Junchang's 2014 paper.  Note the small ridges over the nostril and triangular crest just before the eye socket.  These structures may have been covered in more extensive keratin to form a display structure in life.

No arms were ever found from Qianzhousaurus, unfortunately.  That being said, if it was indeed a true tyrannosaurid, it likely only would have sported two fingers on each hand, like all of its relatives.

That is all for this week!  As always feel free to comment below or on the facebook page!

References

Junchang Lü, Laiping Yi, Stephen L. Brusatte, Ling Yang, Hua Li & Liu Chen, 2014, "A new clade of Asian Late Cretaceous long-snouted tyrannosaurids", Nature Communications 5, Article number: 3788