Alberta is a tyrannosaur graveyard. There rest great carnivores of the Cretaceous, such as Albertosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Daspletosaurus and, of course, Tyrannosaurus rex.

Now, paleontologists in the province have announced the discovery of Canada’s oldest known tyrannosaur: Thanatotheristes degrootorum, or “the Reaper of Death.”

With its razor-sharp teeth and formidable two-ton frame, the newly discovered species terrorized the region some 79.5 million years ago. Though smaller than T. rex, it still measured about 30 feet long and about 8 feet tall. The new species was at least 2.5 million years older than its closest relatives, which may provide insight into when tyrannosaurs grew from small carnivores into the apex predators that perished 66 million years ago.

“Prior to the discovery, we knew all the most famous tyrannosaurs like T. rex, Albertosaurus, Gorgosaurus, were all coming from the last 10 or so million years of the Cretaceous,” said François Therrien, a paleontologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, and an author on the paper. “Now, with the new species we’ve actually pushed back the record of tyrannosaurs.”