The Tarbosaurus inhabited our planet about 70 million years ago, during the great Cretaceous period, an example that was also considered a true tyrannosaurid theropod.

Its natural environment is located in the Asian continent, in Mongolia, although another group of incomplete structures was also found in China.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Well, this is just a brief summary of all the information about the Tarbosaurus that we have on our website. Keep reading and discover everything about this cretaceous dinosaur!

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Tarbosaurus Taxonomy

Taxonomy is responsible for classifying organisms according to the phylogenetic relationships, of “familiar” proximity, that they have with each other. In the case of this superb creature, its taxonomy is described below:

• It is found within the Animalia kingdom
• Phylum or division: Chordata
• Within the Sauropside Class
• Belongs to the Superorder Dinosauria
• Within the Order Saurischia
• It belongs to the Theropoda Infraorder
• Within the Family Tyrannosauridae
• Belongs to the genus Tarbosaurus

Tarbosaurus History

Its name actually means “alarming reptile”, and in the world of Palaeontology only one species is officially recognized, the specimen known as Tarbosaurus bataar.

Meanwhile, there is still a strong debate among the most prestigious scientists, since a group of them states with total certainty that in reality the genus Tarbosaurus is non-existent, because it is actually a specimen that belongs to the Tyrannosaurus, but on the other hand, there is another not lesser group of researchers who try to disprove this theory, so there are opposing opinions that lead to the study of the animal.

On the other hand, there is also another specimen that could be the direct relative of the dinosaur that is the subject of this article, this new specimen was officially named Alioramus, which was also found in a region belonging to the country of Mongolia.

As it happened with other specimens placed within the branch of the Tyrannosaurids, the Tarbosaurus turned out to be a huge predator that had small front extremities that could not have been used in the fight.

It weighed about 1000 kilograms and the dental structure of this animal has more than a dozen teeth that were very affiliated in shape and large in size.
On the other hand we can observe that the extremities of the upper zone were small even within the Tyrannosaurids, this means that the Tarbosaurus had really tiny arms, which also had only a couple of not so resistant or solid fingers.

This specimen developed its existence in very favourable climatic conditions, in fact the rains and the humid environment were the most common in its surroundings, besides this, it can be presumed that it was the animal that hunted other enormous herbivorous specimens and even diverse specimens such as the enormous Saurolophus.

Not to mention that another of its victims could have been the Nemegtosaurus, a really giant sauropod of that time.

Numerous vestiges of this specimen were obtained, so that today several dozens of these dinosaurs are preserved, among which there are also diverse and enormous skulls, as well as almost intact and complete bone structures.

All this fossil richness has allowed the scientific community fully dedicated to Paleontology to find out all kinds of data and knowledge about these animals known as Tarbosaurus.

Characteristics of the Tarbosaurus

As for the physical details of this specimen, we can conclude that its length was about 12 meters, while only its height was about 3 meters, about the weight of the animal we cannot mention an exact figure because no data has been published about it, but it is presumed that it was not greater than the weight of Tyrannosaurus itself, an animal with which it has always been able to be compared due to the great similarities it has.

The skull of this animal could measure a total of about 130 centimeters in length, enjoying a larger dimension if we compare it with the other specimens placed within the Tyrannosaurids, with the exception of the imposing Tyrannosaurus.

Regarding the shape of the skull, we can say that it was considerably thick, especially in the rear area, and we can also see that the rear area of the skull was not large enough for the eye area to be located in the same way as Tyrannosaurus itself.

Additionally, we can observe the presence of fenestra (hollows in the skull), which were located in the skull of Tarbosaurus and which could have had the function of diminishing the great weight that this specimen possessed.

On the dental elements we can say that they had a total of more than 60 teeth, which were greater in quantity if we compare them with the number of teeth that the enormous Tyrannosaurus itself had in the jaw area.

In addition, other specimens such as Gorgosaurus or Alioramus had a greater number of teeth inside their jaws, although these were much smaller in general.

Many of these teeth had an oval shape, however, there were also other teeth that had the shape of a letter “D”, which is why this phenomenon is called heterodontics and is quite common among the family of this unique specimen.
The longest dental element was located precisely in the area where the maxilla was, a tooth that had a crown whose length was exactly 85 mm, very similar to other specimens of its family.