According to a recent paper published in the online edition of the journal Science, paleontologists have supposedly discovered a miniature prototype of Tyrannosaurus rex – the most terrifying predator that ever to have walked! 

The discovery of the new animal is based on a single fossil, the origin of which is not known. The fossil, encased in a rock was purchased earlier this decade, by a Massachusetts ophthalmologist Henry Kriegstein, from a private dealer at a fossil show in Tucson. As per Kriegstein, the dealer said he had bought it in Japan.

Kriegstein donated the fossil to the University of Chicago, and the scientists who studied it found that the animal, Raptorex, was similar in appearance to the giant Tyrannosaurs; with a big head, small forelimbs, and a body built for sprinting. It trod the Earth 125 million years back - 35 million years before Tyrannosaurus.

However, nearly five times smaller and about 100 times lighter in weight than its successor, the Raptorex was only around nine feet in length and 150 pounds in weight; as compared to Tyrannosaurs which was 40 feet long and weighed a colossal 13,000 pounds!

Commenting on the discovery of the Raptorex, Thomas R. Holtz Jr., a University of Maryland paleontologist, who was not involved in the study of the fossil, said that the discovery had helped “clear up the origin of the characteristic features of the Tyrannosaurs.”