The tyrannosaur family tree just got a little bigger. A newfound relative of Tyrannosaurus rex was a smaller, and more graceful, carnivore than its fearsome cousin, but it sported some bizarre features, including a horn and a long snout.

The newly-described T. rex cousin, described in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is named Alioramus altai.
The exceptionally well-preserved fossil sheds light on a previously poorly understood genus of tyrannosaurs and a new suite of adaptations for meat eating.
“This spectacular fossil tells us that there is a lot more anatomical and ecological variety in tyrannosaurs than we previously thought,” said Stephen Brusatte, a graduate student affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History who helped describe the fossil. “Not all tyrannosaurs were megapredators adapted for stalking and dismembering large prey. Some tyrannosaurs were small and slender. Compared to Tyrannosaurus, this new animal is like a ballerina.”
The announcement comes just a few weeks after the addition of another diminutive member to the tyrannosaur family, the earlier Raptorex kriegsteini. Family tree
Tyrannosaurs are bipedal predators that lived at the end of the Cretaceous (from 85 million years to approximately 65 million years ago). One subfamily from North America includes Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus, while the other subfamily bridges Asia and North America and includes Tyranosaurus, Tarbosaurus, and Alioramus.
Both T. rex and Tarbosaurus are remarkably similar, even though they lived on different continents; both were predators with massive jaws and thick teeth that could crunch through bones. In fact, bite marks have been found on some fossils that were prey.
Until now, Alioramus was known only from fragmentary fossils that were briefly described decades ago by a Russian paleontologist, and it has long been debated whether Alioramus was a proper tyrannosaur, a more primitive cousin, or perhaps a juvenile Tarbosaurus.
(Source: LiveScience.com)