Scientists Unearth the 'Rex of Rexes'

It took a long time to unearth, but it’s a whopper: Paleontologists have announced the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus rex ever found. With a skeleton measuring 42 feet, the giant dinosaur is estimated to have weighed in at over 19,400 pounds, reports ABC News. “Scotty," who was named after a bottle of Scotch the researchers enjoyed after the finding, is thought to have stalked the lands around what is now Saskatchewan in Canada, around 66 million years ago. The skeleton was discovered back in 1991, but it has taken over two decades to dig the bones out of solid sandstone and reassemble them.

"This is the rex of rexes," says University of Alberta paleontologist Scott Persons. In fact, it is the largest terrestrial carnivore known to have lived, writes Business Insider. The skeleton suggests large predatory dinosaurs were larger and older than paleontologists previously thought, per National Geographic. Scotty is not just the largest T-rex, but the longest-living, too. He is thought to have died in his early thirties after a life filled with violent battles. A healed rib and broken tailbones, perhaps from the bite of a fellow Rex, attest to that. "By Tyrannosaurus standards, it had an unusually long life," Persons says. “And it was a violent one." (More dinosaurs stories.)