World's biggest Tyrannosaurus rex, nicknamed Scotty, discovered in Canada
Scotty lived in prehistoric Saskatchewan, Canada, 66 million years ago.
He was 42 feet long and weighed more than 9.7 tons.
Scotty was world’s biggest Tyrannosaurus rex and the largest dinosaur skeleton ever found in Canada.
He also lived longer than most T. rexes.
These are some of the finding reported in a study by University of Alberta paleontologists.
“This is the rex of rexes,” said Scott Persons, lead author of the study and postdoctoral researcher in the UA Department of Biological Sciences.
The T. rex was nicknamed Scotty for a celebratory bottle of scotch the night it was discovered.
The skeleton was first found in 1991, but hard sandstone that encased the bones took more than a decade to remove. Scientists were able to study Scotty and realize how unique a dinosaur it is.
“Scotty is the oldest T. rex known,” Persons said in a statement. “By which I mean, it would have had the most candles on its last birthday cake. You can get an idea of how old a dinosaur is by cutting into its bones and studying its growth patterns. Scotty is all old growth.”
Scotty was estimated to have been in its early 30s when it died.
A new exhibit featuring the skeleton of the dinosaur is set to open at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in May 2019.
Frank Carnevale is the TribLive multimedia editor. He started at the Trib in 2016 and has been part of several news organizations, including the Providence Journal and Orlando Sentinel. He can be reached at fcarnevale@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.