A new species of carnivorous dinosaur – one of the three
largest ever discovered in North America – lived alongside and competed with
small-bodied tyrannosaurs 98 million years ago. This newly discovered species,
Siats meekerorum, (pronounced see-atch) was the apex predator of its time, and
kept tyrannosaurs from assuming top predator roles for millions of years.
Named after a cannibalistic man-eating monster from Ute
tribal legend, Siats is a species of carcharodontosaur, a group of giant
meat-eaters that includes some of the largest predatory dinosaurs ever
discovered. The only other carcharodontosaur known from North America is
Acrocanthosaurus, which roamed eastern North America more than 10 million years
earlier. Siats is only the second carcharodontosaur ever discovered in North
America; Acrocanthosaurus, discovered in 1950, was the first.