Tyrannasorus rex
extinct species of beetle
Tyrannasorus rex is an extinct species of hybosorid beetle and the sole member of the genus Tyrannasorus. The species is known from a single, presumably female fossil specimen found in the Dominican Republic. The specimen was trapped in the amber resin of Hymenaea protera, a species of tree which is also now extinct. The most recent studies date Dominican amber to the Miocene epoch (15 to 20 million years ago). T. rex is broadly similar to modern-day hybosorids of genera Apalonychus and Coilodes, sharing their reddish-brown color and a rounded shape. The specimen is deposited at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. The name of the species is a word play on the Tyrannosaurus rex, another, much larger extinct species.
Taxonomy
Tyrannasorus rex is a species of hybosorid beetle from the subfamily Hybosorinae. It is the sole species of the genus Tyrannasorus. The species and the genus were described in 2001 by the entomologists Brett C. Ratcliffe and Federico Carlos Ocampo.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tyrannasorus rex” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.