Beautiful feathered tyrant head comparison

Sorry guys, this is all I have time for right now (I have a full slate of commissioned skeletals at the moment). The bottom version is a sort of "literal" interpretation of the bones as preserved in specimen ELDM V1001. In both I've rearticulated the jugal and lacrimal, which has been move apart as the skull was compacted.

Speaking of compaction, remember that skulls are 3D shapes, and as they get squished the thicker parts (especially the back of the skull) tend to get smashed up a bit. I suspect that the posterior half of the nasals and the top of the skull over the eyes and temporal fossa were fairly displaced as the box-shape was slowly turned into a pancake.

In the top view I've made allotments for that process, producing a skull that would be the more traditional "triangle in front of a box" shape of a theropod skull. I hope to confirm or deny that restoration with a closer examination of the other specimens, but as I said, I just don't have time right now.

I hope this helps those of you itching to restore Yutyrannus, it's certainly a fantastic find (although I'm not totally sold on it being a tyrannosauroid). In a month or so I'll try to crank out the entire thing when (if?) I have a break in my schedule.