Tyrannosauridae

Tyrannosauridae is a family of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs that lived near the end of the Cretaceous period, with fossils known only from North America and Asia. It is divided into two subfamilies: the more lightly built Albertosaurinae, comprising the North American genera Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus, and the Tyrannosaurinae, which includes Daspletosaurus, Tarbosaurus, Teratophoneus, Zhuchengtyrannus, and Tyrannosaurus itself, among others. Estimates of how many genera the family contains range from as few as three to around fifteen. Though descended from smaller ancestors, tyrannosaurids were almost always the largest predators in their ecosystems, standing at the apex of the food chain. They were bipedal carnivores with massive, deep skulls packed with large teeth, proportionally long and cursorial hindlimbs for their size, and greatly reduced forelimbs bearing only two functional fingers.