Episode 394: Jurassic World Dominion vs Prehistoric Planet. We explore how well the dinosaurs in both Jurassic World Dominion and Prehistoric Planet match our current scientific understanding.

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The dinosaur of the day: Moros

• Tyrannosauroid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Utah, U.S. (Cedar Mountain Formation)
• Looked like a small theropod, walked on two legs, had sharp teeth and feathers
• Talked about in episode 223, as a news item, when it was first named
• See Moros in Jurassic World: Dominion preview, during a flashback to the Cretaceous, where it’s eating rotten flesh stuck in Giganotosaurus teeth, and in JWD as a brief cameo in BioSyn
• Depicted as feathered in Jurassic World: Dominion
• Type species is Moros intrepidus
• Genus name is Greek for “the embodiment of impending doom, in reference to the establishment of the Cretaceous tyrannosauroid lineage in North America”
• Species name means “intrepid” in Latin, and refers to it probably being an early arrival from Asia
• Named in 2019 by Lindsay Zanno and others
• Fossils found include a complete right leg and parts of the foot, from a subadult (about 6 or 7 years old)
• Limb bones were found jutting out a hillside in 2013
• Two teeth found nearby, probably from Moros
• Estimated to weigh 172 lb (78 kg)
• Leg was about 4 ft (1.2 m) long
• Probably was quick and nimble
• Had slender foot bones, which were similar in proportion to ornithomimids
• Had a slender tibia, longer than the femur
• Lightweight and had advanced sensory capabilities
• Carnivorous, and could have run down prey, and stayed away from larger predators
• Had a slow to moderate growth rate
• About 15 million years older than other known North American tyrannosauroids
• Lived alongside Deinonychus, the allosauroid Siats, pterosaurs, crocodilians, turtles, amphibians, fish, and mammals

Fun Fact:

The largest carnivore in all of Earth’s history is neither T. rex nor Giganotosaurus, it’s the blue whale.

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