POCATELLO — Bones present in Bonneville County by an Idaho State College professor belonged to a relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

LJ Krumenacker, affiliate professor of geosciences at ISU, discovered a femur bone that he says is the oldest Cretaceous tyrannosaurus bone present in North America, in response to a college information launch.

“This fossil exhibits that a wide range of tyrannosaurs have been current in western North America about 100 million years in the past and lengthy earlier than most of these animals turned the dominant predators close to the tip of the age of the dinosaurs,” Krumenacker says within the assertion.

Krumenacker, who can be an affiliate curator on the Idaho Museum of Pure Historical past, printed an article within the Journal of Paleontology concerning the discovery.

The invention was made within the Caribou Mountains.

“Southeastern Idaho has lots of potential for brand new discoveries of historic life from the age of the dinosaurs and different instances in historical past,” Krumenacker says within the launch. “We have now discovered many fossil fragments that present there’s a nice variety of historic dinosaurs and different Idaho animals to find and study extra about.”

Based mostly on the scale of the partial femur bone found by Krumenacker, it’s estimated that the animal weighed round 100 kilos. It’s believed to be associated to an identical tyrannosaurus whose stays have been present in Utah.

The fossil is at present in North Carolina being studied. However its everlasting residence would be the Idaho Pure Historical past Museum in Pocatello. It is going to be featured in a 2023 exhibit, “Dinosaurs of Idaho.”

The museum is commissioning a reconstruction of the dinosaur for show, in response to the assertion.

“This new tyrannosaurus is a reminder that scientific discovery is ongoing,” museum curator Brandon Peecook mentioned within the assertion. “We’re excited to indicate the brand new specimen to the general public not solely as a cool fossil, but in addition as a knowledge supply for future science within the historical past of life.”