Tyrannosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of western Canada
Author
Russell, Dale A.
text
1970
1970-01-31
National Museum of Natural Sciences, Publications in Palaeontology, No. 1
Ottawa
book
10.5281/zenodo.1040973
9d2c1913-225a-4801-aa8c-817ac9c399bb
1040973
Gilmore
(1946: 17)
considered
Dryptosaurus
aquilunguis
from the
late Cretaceous
of
New
Jersey to be
closely related
to the large
theropods
of
similar age in
the
interior
of North
America and
suggested that the family
group name '
Dryptosauridae'
(
Marsh
1890: 424
) would be available
for
them should
Deinodontidae
prove
to
be based on an indeterminate type genus. In
Dryptosaurus
(for descriptions and measurements see
Cope 1869
-70: 100-08;
Huene 1932: 63-4
) the manus is
larger
than in any known tyrannosaur. The ungual phalanx
of the
first
digit
is very
large
,
the length of
its convex upper surface amounting
to
75 per
cent of the
total
length of the
humerus.
In
Daspletosaurus
, where
the
manus is
relatively large for
a tyrannosaur,
this length
is approximately equal
to
only 40 per
cent of the length of the
humerus. The femur in
Dryptosaurus
is very slender, and in contrast
to
conditions in a half-grown tyrannosaur where
the
circumference /
length ratio of the
femur is comparable (
AMNH 5423
),
the
tibia is
distinctly
shorter than
the femur
. It is unlikely
that
additional material
of
Dryptosaurus
will show
that this
genus and
the
western forms should be placed in
the
same
family
.