Teeth reveal cousin of the T rex once roamed in Sussex

The tyrannosaurs would have been about the third of the size of its famous cousin, the T.rex

East Sussex was once the home to the T.rex's cousin.

Fossilised teeth found in the area suggests the fearsome tyrannosaur roamed in that region 135 million years ago.

They were found by an amateur fossil hunter who started collecting them after his enthusiasm for absolutely everything dinosaurs started as a child.

He's uncovered thousands of of fossils over 30 years and around 5,000 of his discoveries have been donated to a nearby museum.

Researchers analysed the fossilised teeth to work out what species of dinosaur they belonged to

The research into the fossilised teeth was carried out by scientists at the University of Southampton.

The lead author, Dr Chris Barker said: "Meat-eating dinosaurs – properly called theropods – are rare in the Cretaceous sediments of southern England.

Theropods are meat-eating dinosaurs with two legs and it's the first time tyrannosaurs have been identified in sediments of this age and region.

Dr Barker continued: "Dinosaur teeth are tough fossils and are usually preserved more frequently than bone. For that reason, they're often crucial when we want to reconstruct the diversity of an ecosystem."

Dr Darren Naish, a co-author of the study, added: "We've hoped for decades to find out which theropod groups lived here, so the conclusions of our new study are really exciting."