Dino card No. 0740 of 2,015

Gorgosaurus

Say it: GOR-guh-SORE-us

Name means: “dreadful lizard”1

Ate: MeatTyrannosaursLate Cretaceous

Gorgosaurus was a fierce meat-eating dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous. It was an apex predator, hunting big plant-eaters like horned dinosaurs and duck-billed dinosaurs. With dozens of fossils found, it is one of the best-known tyrannosaurs.1

Lived

84 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Alberta, Canada and Montana, USA1 2

Food

Meat1

Length

8.6 m2

Artist's life restoration of Gorgosaurus — How Gorgosaurus may have looked, by Leoomas. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Gorgosaurus lived about 76.5 to 75 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous.1

It is known from at least 12 complete or almost complete skulls and several partial skeletons, making it the best-represented tyrannosaurid.2 1

In 2023, scientists found a juvenile Gorgosaurus with the remains of two Citipes in its stomach, showing it ate smaller prey than adults.1

Gorgosaurus lived in a lush floodplain along the edge of a huge inland sea, with a subtropical climate and seasonal droughts.1

It coexisted with another tyrannosaur, Daspletosaurus, and they may have hunted different prey to avoid competition.1

The first complete Gorgosaurus skeleton was found in 1913 by Charles M. Sternberg in Alberta, Canada.1

Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Gorgosaurus is the same as Albertosaurus.

Truth: Gorgosaurus is a separate genus, though some scientists once thought it was a species of Albertosaurus. Today most recognize it as distinct.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Gorgosaurus
Named by: Lambe 19143
Group: Tyrannosaurs
Family / clade: Tyrannosauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Tyrannosauroidea > Tyrannosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 66 million years (Campanian to Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Dinosaur Park, Hell Creek, Judith River3
Countries: Canada, USA3
Fossil records: 20 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Gorgosaurus was named by Lawrence Lambe in 1914, based on a nearly complete skeleton found in Alberta, Canada by Charles M. Sternberg in 1913.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether some fossils from Montana belong to Gorgosaurus libratus or a new species.1

Where the facts come from

Gorgosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Gorgosaurus | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Gorgosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@dinowiki.app and we will fix it.