# Tarbosaurus bataar

> The Asian cousin of T. rex: a large tyrannosaurid from the Late Cretaceous Nemegt Formation of Mongolia, with a narrower skull, a lower-jaw locking joint and the smallest arms of its family relative to its size.

- Classification: Dinosauria (clade) > Saurischia (clade) > Theropoda (clade) > Coelurosauria (clade) > Tyrannosauroidea (superfamily) > Tyrannosauridae (family) > Tyrannosaurinae (subfamily) > Tarbosaurus (genus) > Tarbosaurus bataar (species)
- Length: 10–12 m
- Hip height: 2.6–3 m
- Mass: 4.5–5 t
- Age: 72.1–66 million years ago (Late Cretaceous)
- Fossils found in: Nemegt Formation (Ömnögovi Province); Mongolia
- Diet: carnivore
- Described: Evgeny A. Maleev, 1955

Canonical page: https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/tarbosaurus-bataar
Last updated: 2026-09-27

## Overview

Tarbosaurus bataar lived in what is now the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in the Late Cretaceous, among rivers and floodplains of the Nemegt Formation. Soviet-Mongolian expeditions of 1946-1949 found several tyrannosaurid skeletons in the Nemegt Basin, and Evgeny Maleev named the first one Tyrannosaurus bataar in 1955 (holotype PIN 551-1).

Maleev named several species from these skeletons; in 1965 Anatoly Rozhdestvensky merged them all into Tarbosaurus bataar. It is one of the best-known tyrannosaurids, with dozens of specimens from juveniles to adults.

Hurum and Sabath (2003) compared its skull with that of Tyrannosaurus: it is narrower, especially at the snout, and has a locking joint between two bones of the lower jaw. They proposed that Asian and North American tyrannosaurines form separate branches. A juvenile skull described in 2011 suggests that young and adult Tarbosaurus hunted different prey.

## Name meaning

"Alarming lizard", from Greek tarbos ("terror, alarm") and sauros ("lizard"); bataar, from Mongolian baatar ("hero") (Maleev 1955).

## Sources

1. (2026). Paleobiology Database: Tarbosaurus occurrences. The Paleobiology Database (paleobiodb.org), data service 1.2, accessed 2026-09-23. https://paleobiodb.org/data1.2/occs/list.txt?base_name=Tarbosaurus&show=coords,paleoloc,strat,loc,ref&pgm=gplates
2. (2026). Wikipedia: Tarbosaurus. Wikipedia (English), accessed 2026-09-23. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarbosaurus
3. Cohen, K. M., Harper, D. A. T., Gibbard, P. L. & Car, N. (2023). International Chronostratigraphic Chart (v2023/09). International Commission on Stratigraphy. https://stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2023-09.pdf
4. Currie, P. J. (2003). Allometric growth in tyrannosaurids (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of North America and Asia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 40: 651-665. https://doi.org/10.1139/e02-083
5. Hurum, J. H. & Sabath, K. (2003). Giant theropod dinosaurs from Asia and North America: skulls of Tarbosaurus bataar and Tyrannosaurus rex compared. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 48(2): 161-190. https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app48/app48-161.pdf
6. Maleev, E. A. (1955). Giant carnivorous dinosaurs of Mongolia. Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR 104(4): 634-637 (in Russian).
7. Paul, G. S. (2016). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (2nd edition). Princeton University Press.
8. Tsuihiji, T., Watabe, M., Tsogtbaatar, K., Tsubamoto, T., Barsbold, R., Suzuki, S., Lee, A. H., Ridgely, R. C., Kawahara, Y. & Witmer, L. M. (2011). Cranial osteology of a juvenile specimen of Tarbosaurus bataar (Theropoda, Tyrannosauridae) from the Nemegt Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Bugin Tsav, Mongolia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 31: 497-517. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2011.557116

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Cite as: "Tarbosaurus bataar". DinoDex. https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/tarbosaurus-bataar (updated 2026-09-27).