A new tyrannosaur dinosaur nicknamed 'Pinocchio Rex' has been discovered in a "one-in-a-million" find in China.
The long-snouted carnivore, which has an elongated skull and narrow teeth, was dug up by workmen on a construction site near the Chinese city of Ganzhou.
"It is an awesome specimen, almost a complete skeleton," said Edinburgh University's Dr Steve Brusatte, who has been examining the bones along with colleagues in China.
"This is a different breed of tyrannosaur. It has the familiar toothy grin of T-rex, but its snout was much longer and it had a row of horns on its nose.
"It might have looked a little comical, but it would have been as deadly as any other tyrannosaur, and maybe even a little faster and stealthier."
The "awesome specimen" was found in the southeast of China Experts believe the near-adult specimen stalked the earth during the late Cretaceous period, more than 66 million years ago. The dinosaur's proper name is Qianzhousaurus sinensis.
Professor Junchang Lu, from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, said: "Although we are only starting to learn about them, the long-snouted tyrannosaurs were apparently one of the main groups of predatory dinosaurs in Asia."
Palaeontologists had been uncertain about the existence of long-snouted tyrannosaurs until the remains were dug up.
Up until that point, just two fossilised juvenile tyrannosaurs with elongated heads had been found and scientists thought they might have been normal T-rexs during an early growth phase.
'Pinocchio Rex' lived alongside other tyrannosaurs, say experts, but would not have competed for food as they probably hunted different prey.
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