NAME

Meaning - Eotyrannus means “dawn tyrant” or “early tyrant”
Pronounced - e-o-tie-RAN-us
Named By - Hutt, Naish, Martill, Barker and Newbery
When Named - 2001
DIET

Carnivore (meat-eater)
SIZE

Length - 15 ft (4.5 m) long
Weight - ?
WHEN IT LIVED

Middle Cretaceous period, about 120 to 125 million years ago
WHERE IT LIVED

Fossils have been found in the Wessex Formation, Isle of Wight, off the coast of Great Britain, Europe.
FOSSILS

What was Found - A 40-percent complete fossil was found in 1997 (including the front half of the skull).
Who Found the Fossils - Eotyrannus was found by a team headed by Darren Naish (Univ. of Portsmouth).
CLASSIFICATION
  • Kingdom Animalia (animals)
  • Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
  • Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
  • Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
  • Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
  • Tetanura - advanced theropods
  • Infraorder Coelurosauria - lightly-built fast-running predators with hollow bones and large brains
  • Superfamily Maniraptoriformes - advanced coelurosaurs with a fused wrist bone
  • Family Tyrannosauroidea - huge predators with small arms and two-fingered hands (the third finger was very tiny). Tyrannosaurids include T. rex, Albertosaurus, Alectrosaurus, Alioramus, Chingkankousaurus, Daspletosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Nanotyrannus, Prodeinodon, Tarbosaurus, etc.
  • Genus Eotyrannus
  • Species E. lengi (type species named by Hutt, Naish, Martill, Barker & Newbery, 2001), named to honor Gavin Leng, who found the first fossil on the Isle of Wight.
INTERESTING FACTS

Eotyrannus was a relative of T. rex.
LINKS

Another page about Eotyrannus.