Questions on a undescribed Late Jurassic Tyrannosaur taxon from Tanzania

[Joseph Fossil]

Image of Selected Kimmeridgian-Tithonian (Late Jurassic) dinosaur faunas: Morrison (USA), Lourinhã (Portugal), Tendaguru (Tanzania), and Guará/Batoví (Brazil and Uruguay). Map modified from Blakey (2006).

Image Credit: Dr. Heitor Francischini, 2017.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Selected-Kimmeridgian-Tithonian-Late-Jurassic-dinosaur-faunas-Morrison-USA-Lourinh_fig5_318348596

 

 

Recently I came across a very interesting record of a possible Jurassic Tyrannosauroid genera from the theropod database. It lists the specimen as coming from the Kimmeridgian-Titonian Jurassic age (Dating 154.8±0.8-145.0 Million Years ago) sections of the Tendaguru formation in the Lindi Region of Southeastern Tanzania, Africa. The details of the specimen are listed on the database as the following:

 

 

undescribed possible tyrannosauroid (Naish, DML 2000)
Late Kimmeridgian-Tithonian, Late Jurassic
Tendaguru Formation, Tanzania
Material- (NHMUK coll.) premaxillary tooth (~10 mm)
Description- D-shaped; one side serrated, the other not.
Reference- Naish, DML 2000. https://web.archive.org/web/20191009075255/http://dml.cmnh.org/2000Apr/msg00440.html

https://theropoddatabase.github.io/Tyrannosauroidea.html#Atroxicariuseversor

 

 

It's detailed by Paleontologist Darren Naish (who helped complete the monograph part of the formal description of Eotyrannus in 2022) the specimen is a premaxillary, d-shaped, theropod tooth about 10mm. In height and is part of the Natural History Museum in London, U.K. (NHMUK) paleontological collections.

https://web.archive.org/web/20191009075255/http://dml.cmnh.org/2000Apr/msg00440.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9271276/

 

 

If this does represent a new Tyrannosauroid genera, it would even be the first to possibly come from around Africa.

http://www.fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=collectionSearch&collection_no=55391

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257651210_First_description_of_theropod_remains_from_the_Middle_Jurassic_Bathonian_of_Madagascar

 

 

 

What I'm wondering is if anyone else has heard about this potential new Tyrannosauroid genera, this particular NHMUK fossil tooth specimen, and how valid could the taxonomic designation be with this taxon?

 

 

[Kikokuryu]

I'd take these with a grain of salt. As it states, Allosaurus is doing a similar D-shape thing with its premaxillary teeth. Abelisaurids are also doing something similar as well.

 

I think the problem is that Allosaurus dentition, thus by extension, Allosauridae was poorly understood for a very common dinosaur, and only recently do we have a good description for them as we see in the Morrison theropod thread. When the observation were made, I don't think there were any good comparisons with Allosaurus at the time, so it probably needs to be reevaluated.

 

But regardless, I wouldn't be surprised if tyrannosauroids were present globally during the Jurassic.