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About Alioramus:
An awful lot has been abstracted about Alioramus from a single, incomplete skull found in Mongolia in 1976. Paleontologists believe it was a medium-sized tyrannosaur closely related to another Asian predator, Tarbosaurus, from which it differed in its size and in the distinctive crests running along its snout.
As with many dinosaurs reconstructed from partial fossils, though, not everyone accepts Alioramus as a genuine tyrannosaur. It's possible that it was a juvenile Tarbosaurus, or perhaps not a tyrannosaur at all but a different kind of carnivorous theropod (hence its name, which means "different branch").
A recent discovery shows that Alioramus was more bizarre than previously thought. It turns out that this tyrannosaur sported eight horns on its skull, each about five inches long, the purpose of which is still a mystery (though they were likely a sexually selected characteristic).


