Zanno calls this relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex the “harbinger of doom”
Written by Ayn-Monique Klahre | Photography by Laura Wall

When we got the news, we rushed right over: Lindsay Zanno, an N.C. State Paleontologist based here in Raleigh, was ready to announce the name of the dinosaur that she and her team discovered in Utah. We got a hint that this might be coming back at our WINnovation event in September, when Zanno was a speaker—she said she was hoping to make a big announcement this spring. And she did!

At about five feet tall with feathers and hollow bones, this dinosaur was likely a fast, ferocious predator. Zanno and team named the new dinosaur the Moros intrepidus, aka the “harbinger of doom,” because it was a precursor to the even scarier T. Rex that came in the Cretaceous period. This dinosaur fills a 70 million year gap between previously discovered dinosaurs of the Jurassic period and the late Cretaceous period.

Read more about the discovery on The News & Observer.