gorgosaurus

Gorgosaurus is a genus of tyrannosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of western North America. The type species, Gorgosaurus libratus, was named by Lawrence Lambe in 1914 from fossils found in the Dinosaur Park Formation of what is now Alberta, Canada. The genus is dated to the Campanian stage, roughly 77 to 75 million years ago.

Gorgosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a large skull bearing sharp teeth and relatively short forelimbs with two functional fingers. It was about 8 meters (26 feet) long and weighed around 1 to 2 metric tons. Its build was somewhat more slender than that of the later Tyrannosaurus rex and Albertosaurus, but it shared the characteristic tyrannosaurid traits such as a massive skull and powerful bite.

Paleobiology and ecology indicate that Gorgosaurus inhabited floodplain ecosystems with hadrosaurids and ceratopsians. As an apex predator of its environment, it likely hunted or scavenged a variety of contemporary herbivores. Fossils of Gorgosaurus are among the more complete tyrannosaurid skeletons from North America, with several individuals described from the Dinosaur Park Formation.

Taxonomically, Gorgosaurus lies within Tyrannosauridae and is closely related to Albertosaurus. Together they represent earlier North American tyrannosaurids that preceded the later widespread rise of Tyrannosaurus. The name means “fearsome lizard.”