Timurlengia

Timur the Lame

• Timur · Turkic/Persian · Timur (Tamerlane), the Central Asian conqueror
• leng · Persian · lame
• -ia · Latin · Latinised suffix for a genus name

The name honours Timur (Tamerlane), the 14th-century Central Asian conqueror who ruled a empire that included the region of Uzbekistan where the fossils were found. He was known as "Timur the Lame" (Timur-i Lenk) because of a leg injury. The authors used this name for a tyrannosauroid that lived in the same area. The only species, T. euotica, has a species name meaning "well-eared", which refers to its inner ear anatomy.

Named by

Brusatte et al.

Year named

2016

Period

Late Cretaceous

Stage

Turonian

Found in

Bissekty Formation, Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan

A mid-sized tyrannosauroid. It is important because it shows that tyrannosauroids were still small to medium-sized, with advanced brain and hearing features, before the giant tyrannosaurids appeared. The type species is Timurlengia euotica.