Tarbosaurus bataar. Cretaceous period. Printed on premium photo quality super "B" paper 17" x 22". Original oil painting by paleo-artist Josef Moravec.

Tarbosaurus is in the art collection of Dinosaur Corporation. Size 24" x 18".

TARBOSAURUS bataar
This giant creature was the Asian counterpart of the T-rex and belonged to the largest Asian predators. Tarbosaurus lived in Mongolia at the same time that T-rex roamed North America. It was the carnosaurian theropod, belonging to the family Tyrannosauridae. Tarbosaurus was an extremely close relative of T-rex, that it is believed by some scientists, that the two should be placed in the same genus; Tarbosaurus would be renamed Tyrannosaurus baatar. (To its own genus Tarbosaurus is frequently assigned the Asian species Tyrannosaurus baatar.) As the Tarbosaurus is more ancient than the T-rex, it suggests the genus could initially have appeared in Asia and then entered North America (through the land bridge connecting these continents in the Cretaceous). Tarbosaurus was a carnivore, eating anything it came across. Because of its bulkiness, it was probably a scavenger. But there is still debate, whether tyrannosaurids were active predators or scavengers. These dinosaurs were probably herding animals they could hunt for large herbivorous dinosaurs (Saurolophus etc). Tarbosaurus had sturdy and quite long legs and its fore limbs were reduced as typical of all carnosaurs. Function of their forelimbs is still not clear. Like other tyrannosaurs, it had a huge head with large cutting serrated teeth. Its brain was unbelievably tiny in comparison with its huge body.

PLACE: Nemagetu, Gobi Desert, southern Mongolia.
LENGTH: 31-40 ft (9-12 m)
WEIGTH: 4-5 tonnes
TIME - 68 - 65 MYA, Late Cretaceous period.
RANGE - Asia (Mongolia)
DIET - Carnivore (meat eater)
SIZE - Up to 46ft (14m) long and 24ft(8m) tall.