We know a lot about Tyrannosaurus Rex, the dinosaur that roamed the planet during the late Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago, had 60 banana-sized teeth, a name that means 'tyrant lizard king' and two tiny arms that remain a mystery to this day.
But we can only guess that if they could speak, they would say 'identity theft is not a joke.'
A new Tyrannosaurus just dropped with the discovery of a dinosaur fossil in New Mexico. It's been identified as an older, more primitive relative of the T.Rex dubbed 'Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis'.
This T.Mac roamed the Earth some 7 million years before the T.Rex, but is believed to be a 'side-branch' species rather than a direct ancestor.
The skull was initially considered to be a T.Rex, but upon closer examination, scientists discovered subtle differences in its skull.
"Compared to T. rex, the lower jaw is shallower and more curved towards the back. The blunt hornlets above the eyes are lower than in T. rex," said paleontologist Nick Longrich of the University of Bath in England.
"It's the nature of species that the differences tend to be subtle. The key thing is they're consistent. We looked at lots of different T. rex, and our animal was consistently different from every known T. rex, in every bone," Longrich added.
Per Reuters, before this, T. rex had been the "sole species of the genus Tyrannosaurus recognized since the dinosaur was first described in 1905." T. rex roamed a couple million years before an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs.
The researchers also said T. mcraeensis was larger than other Tyrannosaurus relatives that came before T. rex, "suggesting that giant species of this group evolved millions of years earlier than previously thought and came from southern North America."