Appalachiosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,
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Reconstructed skeleton, Tellus Science Museum | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | Theropoda |
Clade: | †Eutyrannosauria |
Genus: | †Appalachiosaurus Carr et al., 2005 |
Species: | †A. montgomeriensis
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Binomial name | |
†Appalachiosaurus montgomeriensis Carr et al., 2005
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Appalachiosaurus (/ˌæpəˌleɪtʃioʊˈsɔːrəs/ AP-ə-LAY-chee-oh-SOR-əs; "Appalachian lizard") is a genus of tyrannosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of what is now eastern North America. It was a basal member of the Eutyrannosauria clade meaning it was rather close in relation to the true tyrannosaurids such as Tyrannosaurus. Like most theropods, it was a bipedal predator. Only a juvenile skeleton has been found, representing an animal approximately 6.5 metres (21 ft) long and weighing 623 kilograms (1,373 lb), which indicates an adult would have been significantly larger.
Fossils of Appalachiosaurus were found in central Alabama's Demopolis Chalk Formation. This formation dates to the middle of the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous, around 77 million years ago.[1] Fossil material assigned to A. montgomeriensis is also known from the Donoho Creek and Tar Heel-Coachman formations of North and South Carolina in 2007[2], as well as the Blufftown and Ripley formations in Georgia.