The Frightful Lizard

The "Frightful Lizard", Daspletosaurus consists of two recognized species: D. torosus Russell 1970 and D. horneri Carr et al. 2017. Daspletosaurus was at the top of its game during the Late  Cretaceous approximately 77 to 74 million years ago. Fossils of Daspletosaurus have been found in Alberta (D. torosus) and Montana (D. horneri) and are contemporaneous with Gorgosaurus, Centrasaurus, Hypacrosaurus, Brachylophosaurus, and Albertaceratops, among others. It is hypothesized that Gorgosaurus and Daspletosaurus may not have been in direct competition as apex predators, allowing for some niche partitioning that enabled them to live in the same areas at the same time without out-competing one another. As the more robust of the two genera, Daspletosaurus may have been more likely to prey on the more physically robust and difficult to take down ceratopsians than hadrosaurs; leaving hadrosaurs for lean times and Gorgosaurus.

©Dmitry Bogdanov