#proceratosauridae

[makairodonx]

Portrait of Guanlong wucaii, an Asian proceratosaurid and an ancient, distant relative of the infamous Tyrannosaurus that lived about 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic of what is now the Shishugou Formation of Western China.

[mesozoicmarket]

A partial dinosaur tooth of an indeterminate theropod from an unknown locale. It was labeled as possibly from the Yixian Formation thus potentially Yutyrannus huali. However, the odd orange preservation does not match that of this deposit according to those familiar with the formation; I'm also not sure if that darkened spot was caused by fire damage. The distal serration density of 20-21/5mm seems a bit high for Yutyrannus based on what's described from Sinotyrannus which is around 15-16/5mm, and it's unclear whether the tooth has a mesial carinae. There is a possibility that it belongs to the Cretaceous carcharodontosaurian tooth taxon, Prodeinodon. A very unusual tooth, but unfortunately the dubious provenance makes identification extremely difficult if not impossible.

[that-dinopunk-guy]

I don't think I posted this one here, and I can't be bothered to check. This one's about a domesticated proceratosaur having an experience.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"...THE SKULL AND PELVIS PLACE IT IN THE TYRANNOSAUROID SUPERFAMILY. LIKE MANY OTHER THEROPODS, IT ALMOST CERTAINLY HAD FEATHERS."

PIC INFO: Resolution at 1387x1387x1913 -- Spotlight on the Guanlong wucaii, a small to mid-sized early tyrannosaur and a member of the family Proceratosauridae. Unlike your typical tyrannosaur, Guanlong wucaii had long arms and three-fingered hands for grabbing and ripping. But the shape of its teeth, and features in the skull and pelvis place it in the tyrannosauroid superfamily. Like many other theropods, it almost certainly had feathers. Artwork by William Stout, c. 2009.

Genus: Guanlong 

Species: wucaii 

Family: Proceratosauridae 

Super Family: Tyrannosauroidea 

Suborder: Theropoda 

Order: Saurischia

Superorder: Dinosauria 

Class: Reptilia

Subphylum: Vertebrata 

Phylum: Chordata 

Kingdom: Animalia

Pronounced GWON-long woo-kay-eye

INTRODUCTION: "Named from the Chinese words guan, meaning "crown," and long, meaning "dragon," in reference to its flashy head-crest, the most elaborate of any known theropod dinosaur. The species name comes from the Chinese word wucai meaning "five colours" and refers to the multi-hued rocks at Wucaiwan, the badlands where the fossils were found.

Guanlong wucaii is one of the most primitive tyrannosaurs known. It hunted its prey 95 million years before T. rex lived."

-- AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM, Dinosaurs and their Relatives/Dinosaur Fact Sheets

Source: www.pinterest.com/pin/504614333230272954 & https://australian.museum/learn/dinosaurs/fact-sheets/guanlong-wucaii.

[fundinofactoftheday]

Dinofact #40

Proceratosaurus, a small theropod carnivore, was originally thought to be an ancestor of Ceratosaurus, due to the crest on its head resembling that of Ceratosaurus. However, it is now considered a coelurosaur, specifically a member of Proceratosauridae, whereas Ceratosaurus is a Ceratosaurid. Proceratosaurus may be one of the earliest members of Tyrannosauroidea.

Source: wikipedia [1], [2]

[cmaidaartworkblog]

Portrait of Kileskus aristotocus, a Proceratosaurid from Middle Jurassic Russia. Done in oils on a pre-painted canvas in one night, based on one of the Valentine's cards I drew for my coworkers, 2020 On Reddit I had to upload this as a jpeg for file size reasons, but at least it could retain its full dimensions. So here’s a link to that, for your zooming pleasure: https://old.reddit.com/r/Paleoart/comments/gvauzb/portrait_of_kileskus_aristotocus_a/

[thecoffeeisblack]

Work in progress on my Yutyrannus huali, color reference included. This time I'm pulling from the Bearded Vulture, an amazing bird with some fuzzy looking feathers and great colors.

[necronatron]

[paleonativeart]

Day 10: Guanlong wucaii

That night, a proceratosaurid Guanlong glowing it own black filamentous with blue Bioluminescent.

[lauras-happy-place]

Guanlong wucaii

('crown dragon, multicoloured/five-coloured')

Tyrannosauroidea Proceratosauridae*

The 'multicoloured' or 'five-coloured' of the species name refers to the rainbow rocks the two specimens were found in, stacked one atop t'other, with some other little animals thrown in--even another proceratosaurid, Dilong paradoxus. All these animals were literally squished and drowned inside the big chowder pot of a giant sauropod footprint. Tragic event for them = really cool fossil for us.

Shishugou Formation, Dzungaria, Xinjiang, China.

Upper Jurassic, ~160 Ma.

*Proceratosaurids were once thought to be ancestral to ceratosaurs; now understood to be tyrannosauroids

~

Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto.

Daily Dino Fact #45

[albertonykus]

Everyone praises Tyrannosaurus for its' strong bite force; a bite so powerful it could puncture and/or crush bone. But was Tyrannosaurus the only member of its' Clade (Tyrannosauroidea) capable of such a bite? Were its' relatives (Proceratosauridae, Albertosaurinae, Alioramini, other Tyrannosaurinae, other Tyrannosauroidea, etc.) also capable of such a powerful bite? If so, what's the earliest this trait would've appeared in the Tyrannosauroidea Clade?

Tyrannosaurus most likely had the strongest bite of all known tyrannosauroids, in part because it was the biggest one. However, specializations for a powerful crushing bite are seen in essentially all tyrannosaurids (at least as adults). These adaptations include a deep, wide skull, thickened teeth with deep roots, and reinforced bones in the snout and palate. Numerical estimates of bite force consistently find that tyrannosaurids likely had stronger bites than similarly-sized ceratosaurs and allosauroids.

Many non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroids had some of the aforementioned features, but they generally did not have the full suite. I don’t recall any quantitative estimates of their bite force offhand, but I’d expect from their anatomy that they mostly had bite forces similar to those of other carnivorous theropods in the same size range. Mind you, the bites of many non-tyrannosaurid theropods were quite capable of puncturing and scraping bones; it’s more that they probably weren’t crunching through large quantities of bone on a regular basis the way tyrannosaurids appear to have done.

[mesozoicmarket]

A dinosaur tooth of an indeterminate theropod from the Itat Formation in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. Although labeled as Kileskus aristotocus, the odd absence of a mesial carinae suggest it may not be proceratosaurid, or even tyrannosauroid. Unfortunately there are not many papers published on isolated teeth from these Middle Jurassic deposits, and this particular morphology does not seem to correspond to any known clade.

[sorashei676]

Another one for our dino challenge with my friend @akire2002 ! (Randomly generated dinosaur + randomly generated colour palette)

About GUANLONG:

name meaning: "crowned dragon" (very fancy name for a very fancy dinosaur hehe)

time period: Late Jurassic

family: proceratosauridae

interesting facts: Guanlong is a relative of a well known Tyrannosaurus. Crests on their head were for mating display. (Those little chicks in my drawing are wrong. Younglings probably didn't have them at that age)

Check out my other dinosaurs from this challenge:

Parvicursor

Khaan & Kaatedocus

[angstybreadstyx]

New favorite pass time while at work is going through Wikipedia trying to draw every single dinosaur. Going from Clade (currently doing theropoda) down to superfamily, then from there into subgroups, into genus, and then into species. Currently have done the subgroups Tyrannosauridae, tanycolagreus(poor baby all by itself), and proceratosauridae. This method is efficient as I can be but I’m probably still missing a whole lot! Cause the tyrannosauroidae super family doesn’t have the tyrannosauridae listed under it for some reason! Even though they belong to that group and it says it on their page! And Wikipedia does this with like every other thing too!!! I only know like a couple hundred off the top of my head please what am I gonna do when I run out of them to search?? I’ll just have to spend forever digging on Wikipedia trying to find them

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Yutyrannus huali

By Scott Reid

Etymology: Feathered Tyrant 

First Described By: Xu et al., 2012 

Classification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Avetheropoda, Coelurosauria, Tyrannoraptora, Tyrannosauroidea, Proceratosauridae 

Status: Extinct 

Time and Place: Sometime between 129 and 122 million years ago, from the Barremian to the Aptian ages of the Early Cretaceous 

Yutyrannus is known from an unspecified member of the Yixian Formation in Liaoning, China 

Physical Description: Yutyrannus is one of those dinosaurs that probably wasn’t much to look at, in terms of extraordinary appearance, at the time it lived - but to us, it is one of the most fascinating and exciting dinosaurs ever found. It was a large predator, around 9 meters long and weighing a little over one tonne. It had a long snout like other Tyrannosaurs, with a high crest in the middle of the snout that makes it distinct from other Tyrannosaurs. It also had extremely hollowed out openings in its head, giving it a lighter weight skull. It had a very flat tongue, like a crocodile, that was also fairly fixed as opposed to living birds. It had short arms, with three fingers on each hand (unlike the Tyrannosaurids, which would have two), and long, powerfully muscular legs connected to a similarly muscular tail. Of course, the most interesting fact about Yutyrannus was its feathers. Yutyrannus was covered in long (as long as 20 centimeters), shaggy feathers, covering nearly all over the body of the dinosaur. This makes Yutyrannus one of the largest animals known with direct evidence of feathers. If scales were present on this fluffer-nutter, we aren’t actually sure where! 

By Conty, CC BY-SA 3.0 

Diet: As a Tyrannosaur, Yutyrannus would have fed primarily on other dinosaurs and animals smaller than itself. 

Behavior: Yutyrannus was an extremely common animal in its habitat, which strongly suggests that it was at least somewhat social, possibly even a pack hunter. In fact, we have enough specimens of this animal to know that, as it grew, the lower legs, feet, pelvis, and arms grew smaller relative to its body; and the skull grew more robust and deep compared to the rest of the body. As a dinosaur, Yutyrannus would have taken care of its young; the fact that it was potentially social makes the likelihood of it doing so even larger. As for the feathers, it is more likely than not that Yutyrannus evolved these structures for the cold climate it lived in - it was, on average, only 10 degrees Celsius in the Yixian, which would have necessitated fluffy covering for maintaining body warmth. This also would explain why later Tyrannosaurids lost most of their feathers, as the climate of their habitat grew warmer. It is, however, possible that Yutyrannus also used at least some aspects of their feathers in social display - which is also the probable reason for the crest on the middle of its skull, which could have been colored differently or patterned in order to stand out to potential mates. 

By Meig Dickson & Diane Remic

Ecosystem: Yutyrannus lived in the Yixian, a chilly coniferous forest marked with distinct seasonal changes and high levels of humidity, briefly broken up with notable dry seasons - in short, it was like modern-day Chicago, just with coniferous trees instead of deciduous ones (not least because deciduous trees, aka flowering trees, weren’t a very big deal yet). It would not be unsurprising if it had four distinct seasons - very wet springs, drier summers, dry autumns, and a return to humidity and wetness come winter. In fact, there is a nonzero chance that snow was a regular feature of the Yixian formation. There were a variety of flowering plants present along with ferns, horsetails, ginkgoes, cycads, seed ferns, and many others, leading to a variety of herbivores being present in this ecosystem. These forests surrounded a series of freshwater lakes with abundant minerals present, due to nearby volcanic reactions. Periodic disturbances due to these volcanic eruptions lead to very rapid animal turnover, and an extreme diversification - especially of fluffy dinosaurs - in the region. 

By PaleoEquii, CC BY-SA 4.0 

It is uncertain what sorts of dinosaurs actually lived with Yutyrannus, specifically because it is uncertain what part of the ecosystem Yutyrannus was found in. It is likely that it lived alongside the small early therizinosaur Jianchangosaurus, which would have been a major source of prey for Yutyrannus; it is also possible that it lived alongside the raptors Changyuraptor and Zhenyuanlong, which may have fed upon the babies of Yutyrannus. More research as to where in the ecosystem Yutyrannus hailed from will reveal more about its role in the food chain. It is possible, as shown above, that it may have hunted large sauropods such as Dongbeititan, provided it lived in the same region as them. Evidence of sauropod bones in the same location indicates that least some sort of sauropod was present as food for this dinosaur. 

By Ripley Cook

Other: Yutyrannus was a Proceratosaurid, a group of early Tyrannosaurs which showcased interesting headgear, fluffy body covering, and what Tyrannosaurs were doing in the Early Cretaceous. Yutyrannus was one of the largest members of this group, and as such it is possible that it falls outside of the Proceratopsaurid group, as it has some features of the groups of Tyrannosaurs that would later evolve into the Tyrannosaurids. It is also entirely possible that Tyrannosaurids evolved from Proceratosaurids - and the traits of the group are just common to all early Tyrannosaurs. 

~ By Meig Dickson 

Sources Under the Cut 

Amiot, R., X. Wang, Z. Zhou, X. X. Wang, E. Buffetaut, C. Lécuyer, Z. Ding, F. Fluteau, T. Hibino, N. Kusuhashi, J. Mo, V. Suteethorn, Y. Y. Wang, X. Xu, F. Zhang. 2011. Oxygen isotopes of East Asian dinosaurs reveal exceptionally cold Early Cretaceous climates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (13): 5179 - 5183. 

Brusatte, S.L. and Carr, T.D. 2016. The phylogeny and evolutionary history of tyrannosauroid dinosaurs. Scientific Reports, 6(20252). 

Carr, T. D., D. J. Varricchio, J. C. Sedlmayr, E. M. Roberts, and J. R. Moore. 2017. A new tyrannosaur with evidence for anagenesis and crocodile-like facial sensory system. Scientific Reports 7:44942:1-11 

Coria, R. A.; Currie, P. J. (2006). "A new carcharodontosaurid (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of Argentina". Geodiversitas. 28 (1): 71–118.  

Fu, Q., J. B. Diez, M. Pole, M. G. Ávila, Z.-J. Liu, H. Chu, Y. Hou, P. Yin, G.-Q. Zhang, K. Du, X. Wang. 2018. An unexpected noncarpellate epigynous flower from the Jurassic of China. eLife 2018 (7): e38827. 

Li, Zhiheng; Zhou, Zhonghe; Clarke, Julia A. (2018). "Convergent evolution of a mobile bony tongue in flighted dinosaurs and pterosaurs". PLOS ONE. 13 (6): e0198078. 

Meng, F. X., S. Gao, X. M. Liu. 2008. U-Pb Zircon Geochronology and Geochemistry of Volcanic Rocks of the Yixian Formation in the Lingyuan Area, Western Liaoning, China. Geological Bulletin of China 27: 364 - 373. 

Mo, J., F. Zhou, G. Li, Z. Huang, and C. Cao. 2014. A new Carcharodontosauria (Theropoda) from the Early Cretaceous of Guangxi, Southern China. Acta Geologica Sinica 88(4):1051-1059 

Switek, B. 2013. Palaeontology: The truth about T. rex. Nature News, 23 October 2013. 

Wang, Y., S. Zheng, X. Yang, W. Zhang, Q. Ni. 2006. The biodiversity and palaeoclimate of confier floras from the Early Cretaceous deposits in western Liaoning, northeast China. International Symposium on Cretaceous Major Geological Events and Earth System: 56A. 

Xing L., Bell, P.R., Currie, P.J., Shibata M., Tseng K. & Dong Z. (2012). "A sauropod rib with an embedded theropod tooth: direct evidence for feeding behaviour in the Jehol group, China." Lethaia, (advance online publication). 

Xu, X., K. Wang, K. Zhang, Q. Ma, L. Xing, C. Sullivan, D. Hu, S. Cheng, and S. Wang. 2012. A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China. Nature 484:92-95 

Zhou, Z. 2006. Evolutionary Radiation of the Jehol Biota: Chronological and Ecological Perspectives. Geological Journal 41: 377 - 393.