Easy lover: Tyrannosaurs rubbed faces in courtship, new dinosaur study says

The tyrannosaur family has a reputation as a fearsome predator savagely hunting down prey, but new research suggests they were also sensitive lovers.

The new species of tyrannosaur, the Daspletosaurus horneri, is thought to have had a face covered in scales and a snout more sensitive than a human fingertip.

Described in new research published in Science Reports, D horneri's sensitive snout would have helped them in nesting and picking up eggs and their young.

An artist's impression of what d horneri's face might have looked like (Dino Pulera / Supplied)
An artist's impression of what d horneri's face might have looked like (Dino Pulera / Supplied)

But it may also been an important when they got amorous with a significant other.

"In courtship, tyrannosaurids might have rubbed their sensitive faces together as a vital part of pre-copulatory play," the authors write.

D horneri came from the Late Cretaceous period around 100 to 66 million years ago from Montana and was estimated to be around nine metres long and 2.2 metres tall.

It lived before the most well-known of the family, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

To reach their conclusion, author Thomas Carr and colleagues examined the facial bones of the d horneri in an attempt to figure out what its soft tissue may have looked like.

They compared their findings to the crocodilian family and five species of birds leading them to suggest tyrannosaurs' faces were covered in flat scales.

They also believed parts of the skin were tough and armour-like around the snout and jaws.

Newshub.