“Unveiling the ‘Reaper Of Death’: Canada’s Ancient Predator That Preys on the T. Rex’s Legacy!”
As for the creature’s name, the researchers who discovered it primarily considered its place in the prehistoric food chain.
“We chose a name that embodies what this tyrannosaur was as the only known large apex predator of its time in Canada, the reaper of death,” said Darla Zelenitsky, assistant professor of Dinosaur Palaeobiology at the University of Calgary. “The nickname has come to be Thanatos.”
Julius Csotonyi/The University of Calgary/Royal Tyrrell Museum/AFPThis artist rendering of the Thanatos’ head shows the vertical ridges, battle scars, and long deep snout. The latter was similar to that of the Daspletosaurus, suggesting this specimen filled some gaps in the tyrannosaur’s fossil record.
Oddly enough, the dinosaur’s fossilized bones were actually discovered in 2008 by Sandra and John De Groot, who were out for a stroll along a lakeshore in Alberta when they saw something poking up through the ice.
To their surprise, after joking that it looked like a dinosaur jaw, they discovered that’s exactly what it was.
“It was just kind of this ‘Wow’ moment of ‘Holy cow! You actually did find some teeth laying here on the ground,’” said Mrs. De Groot, a substitute teacher who’s collected bones and ammonites in the past.
Two years later, Donald Henderson, a paleontologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller gave a talk at her school. She told him what she and her husband had found and offered to show him the remains and — after an enthusiastic meeting — the couple donated their find to the museum.
