Nanotyrannus is Valid!
I Know Dino: The Big Dinosaur Podcast
I KNOW DINO, LLC
4.7 • 653 Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two separate groups of researchers have independently confirmed that Nanotyrannus is its own genus and not just a juvenile T. rex. Plus a new Nanotyrannus species and another new tyrannosauroid and tyrannosaur injuries.
For links to every news story, all of the details we shared about Calamosaurus, and our fun fact check out https://iknowdino.com/Calamosaurus-Episode-554/
Join us at www.patreon.com/iknowdino for dinosaur requests, bonus content, ad-free episodes, and more.
Dinosaur of the day Calamosaurus, a small theropod that’s been mixed up with lots of other theropods.
In dinosaur news this week:
- A new complete Nanotyrannus skeleton confirms that it deserves its own genus and is not just a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex
- A close analysis of the small throat (hyoid) bone from the Nanotyrannus holotype confirms it was nearly full-sized
- Review of the taxonomic history of Nanotyrannus
- There’s a new Late Cretaceous tyrannosauroid, Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, related to the fluffy Yutyrannus
- Scotty the T. rex appears to have blood vessel structures in a rib showing how it healed. (in the fun fact)
- Companies are claiming to make luxury fashion items out of T. rex leather but that’s not currently possible. (in the fun fact)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Happy holidays. Before we start this episode, we just want to make an announcement that we are |
| 0:05.4 | introducing our 12 days of Patreon for the first time this year. We're going to have extra |
| 0:10.8 | special bonus episodes, big announcements, freebies, videos, downloadable goodies, and a live |
| 0:17.7 | stream on the 12th day to cap it all off. But maybe most importantly, you can get 20% off annual memberships of all our Patreon tiers until December 19th at patreon.com slash I-N-O-D-No. |
| 0:30.3 | If you use the code 12 days, that's 1-2-D-A-Y-S and days are all in caps. |
| 0:37.2 | So again, if you want to get 20% off and join us for our 12 |
| 0:40.5 | days of Patreon, head over to patreon.com slash I-N-O-D-D-N-O-D-N-O and put in code 1-2-D-A-Y-S. |
| 0:57.0 | Hello and welcome to I Know Dino. |
| 1:00.3 | Keep up with the latest dinosaur discoveries and science with us. |
| 1:01.1 | I'm Gary. |
| 1:02.1 | And I'm Sabrina. |
| 1:10.3 | And today in our 554th episode, we're covering something that has been requested several times. |
| 1:29.2 | It's been a while since people were jumping out at us about a news story, multiple people asking us to do an episode on it. But we are. I like to think of this episode as Tyrannosaurid tirade. This is a suggestion from our Dinotol patron, Porter Venador. Tyraid, I think, works well here because we'll be talking about a new paper that has convinced everyone, including all the Tyrannosaurus, |
| 1:33.4 | experts, that nanotaranis is valid. I don't know if it's everyone. Okay, well, many of them. But not |
| 1:41.1 | just that, there are now two nanotanus species, according to the latest paper. |
| 1:46.6 | And we also have a new tyrannosauroid dinosaur to talk about. And what all this means for |
| 1:52.5 | tyrannosaurus, as well as how many species of tyrannosaurus there are. So technically three new |
| 1:58.1 | tyrannosoroids, because nanotaranus is a tyrannosauroid. There's two new species of that. Oh, yeah. Oh, actually one new species. I guess it depends on if you consider it synonymized previously or not. We also have an even newer paper, which just came out a few days ago. And if you're listening to this, as soon as it comes out, you might notice the episode's a little late. That's what I'm blaming for this lateness. And it confirms what the other researchers said about nanoturanus being valid, but in a completely different way, with a clever use of a bone that I didn't know we had of nanoturanus before. Yes. We also have Dinosaur of the Day, Kalamazores, a small theropod that's been mixed up with lots of other theropods. I think it was our only |
| 2:37.9 | theropod that's been mixed up with lots of other theropods. |
| 2:37.1 | I think it was our only theropod request right now. |
| 2:41.1 | And our fun fact, which is that blood vessel structures have been found in Tyrannosaurus, and they can help us learn how it healed from injuries. |
| 2:49.9 | But before we get into all of that, as always, we like to thank some of our patrons, |
... |
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