Dinosaur Discovery

A new study led by Princeton and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History found Nanotyrannus is its own species. It was previously believed to be a juvenile T. rex based on the discovery of a small skull found in 1942. Christopher Griffin, an assistant professor of geosciences at Princeton and lead scientist on the project, is an expert in age-dating dinosaur bones. He was able to confirm the new species by cutting into the hyoid bone, which is located in the neck, to reveal that the skull belonged to an adult dinosaur. “The novelty of this study is showing that these slender throat bones preserve a record of growth like limbs and ribs do,” says Griffin, who is pictured here with a T. rex skull from the Princeton natural history collection. The study was published in December in the journal Science.