Tyrannosaurus, "tyrant lizard", or "Tyrannosaurus rex (Tyrant lizard king)", T. rex for short, was a dinosaur that lived in North America about 68 to 66 million years ago, during the end of the Cretaceous period. T. rex is one of the largest carnivorous (meat-eating) dinosaurs ever discovered. It is also quite likely the best-known dinosaur of all.
Tyrannosaurus rex was up to 12.4 meters (40.7 feet) long and 3.66 meters (12 feet) tall, and weighed 10 tons (11.03 US tons) – bigger than a bus, and as heavy as two African bush elephant. That's as an adult. T. rex when first hatched was probably about the size of a turkey. T. rex had a forward tilt, deep jaws, huge teeth, a long tail, and tiny arms (also known as forelimbs).
T. rex's jaw alone was about 1.3 meters long and had fifty to sixty bone-crunching teeth that were up to 10 centimeters or 6 inches long. Its arms were very stubby, no longer than an average person's. They were still very strong, able to lift up to two hundred kilograms, but were not long enough to touch each other! T. rex stood on two powerful hind legs, each ending with a three-toed foot, resembling a bird's foot, only much larger.
What did they eat?
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T. rex was a very big meat-eating dinosaur, also called a carnivore. It would have been at the top of the food chain. It is known to have fed on other large dinosaurs, such as Edmontosaurus, Anatosaurus, and Triceratops, and probably could have swallowed smaller dinosaurs in a single bite.
One scientist believes that T. rex was a scavenger (an animal that eats already dead animals). He argues that it might not have been fast enough to catch prey. Other scientists believe that T. rex probably scavenged and hunted, like most living meat-eaters (such as tigers and lions). T. rex bite marks found on the bones of Edmontosaurus and Triceratops that have healed show that Tyrannosaurus did hunt at least some of the time – and also that its prey was sometimes lucky enough to escape.
One thing that T. rex did not eat was people. People didn't appear on Earth until over 60 million years later, much too late for anyone ever to be afraid of being hunted down by a T. rex.
When did they live?
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Tyrannosaurus lived about 68 to 66 million years ago, in the late Cretaceous Period. T. rex was among the last of the big dinosaurs. Like all non-bird dinosaurs, T. rex lived in the Mesozoic era.
What was their habitat?
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Tyrannosaurus is believed to have lived in forests, near rivers, and in areas that were open and full of prey. Mild seasons would have been most favorable to it. Tyrannosaurus fossils have been found in western North America and possibly Asia.
How were they discovered?
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The famous fossil hunter Barnum Brown found the first Tyrannosaurus fossil in 1905. Tyrannosaurus was not the dinosaur's name until 1905, when it was given that name by Henry Fairfield Osborn. About 3,000 Tyrannosaurus fossils have been found, from pieces of teeth to nearly complete skeletons. Only one possible Tyrannosaurus footprint has been found.
What do we need to learn?
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The color of their skin. One thing we cannot tell from fossils is color!
Whether T. rex was feathered, scaly, or both. Some of its cousins had feathers like birds, while others had scales, so it likely had both.
Whether T. rex was just a scavenger or a scavenger and a hunter. There are very few hunting animals that will not scavenge, and very few scavengers which never hunt.
If T. rex had the ability to run.
Was it really the largest predator? In 1995, parts of a predator that seems even larger than T. rex were found in Argentina! It was called Giganotosaurus and was about 45 ft long (about a meter [yard] longer than T. rex). Since then, parts of even larger carnivorous dinosaurs, such as Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, have been found.
T.rex was a very big meat-eating dinosaur, also called a carnivore. It would have been at the top of the food chain. It is known to have fed on other large dinosaurs, such as Edmontosaurus, Anatosaurus, and Triceratops, and probably could have swallowed smaller dinosaurs in a single bite.
A new study says the T. rex family looked more like lizards, with scaly lips covering and sealing their mouths when closed. Close your eyes and imagine a Tyrannosaurus rex. Your dinosaur probably has a hulking frame, scaly skin, puny arms and protruding teeth it wielded to be the apex predator of its era.
rex tasted more like poultry than, say, beef or pork. Its flavor would likely have been closer to that of a carnivorous bird—perhaps a hawk—than a chicken. What does a hawk taste like? It's probably not far off from the dark meat of a turkey but would be more pungent because of its all-meat diet.
No one is totally sure what dinosaur metabolism looked like, but the best guesses for how much food T-rex ate seem to cluster around 40,000 calories per day. [2]
The entire skeleton, now known as the Wankel T.rex, was excavated and displayed at the Museum of the Rockies. In 2013 it was prepared for its journey to Washington, D.C., where it is on loan to the National Museum of Natural History for the next 50 years. It is one of the most complete skeletons of T.
Fossil studies have found that the mighty T-rex actually shares quite a considerable amount of DNA with modern-day chickens and, by extension, all birds. Now you'll never look at a humble pigeon the same way!
T. rex probably had a metabolism somewhere in between. So if we say 15 per cent, this would translate to more than a tonne of meat per week, or about two people a day.
In a cage match, T.rex has several adaptations that might give it an edge over Giganotosaurus. But don't place your bets yet. The bigger dinosaur could leverage its skill at hunting massive sauropods to take down a smaller-than-usual foe.
rex ate ornithischian, or bird-hipped, dinosaurs, like the duck-billed Edmontosaurus, a 1998 study in the journal Nature found. Researchers have also discovered T. rex bite marks in the bones of other duck-billed dinosaurs and Triceratops bones, according to a 1996 study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The biggest T Rex tooth that has been found is 30cm long – that's as long as a standard ruler! If that wasn't scary enough, the T-Rex jaw could close with a whopping 6 tons of pressure, and they were capable of ripping up to 100kg of flesh off their prey in a single bite.
What is a Tyrannosaurus rex weakness? Although Tyrannosaurus rex is known for its sharp claws and teeth, this dinosaur also had a few weaknesses. One of them is the presence of extremely short arms, which were too short to be used for eating or grasping items.
There were no known predators of Tyrannosaurus. However, whilst they were wary of dinosaurs like the armored Ankylosaurus, the only dinosaurs, the only thing for that matter, T. rex was truly afraid of was another, larger individual of their own species who were willing to commit cannibalism.
Daspletosaurus wilsoni is a transitional species linking the ancestral Daspletosaurus torosus with Daspletosaurus horneri in an evolutionary lineage evolving from 77 to 75 million years ago. Supports the intriguing hypothesis that the Daspletosaurus lineage was directly ancestral to Tyrannosaurus rex.
By analyzing T. rex's fossils, Julia Clarke found evidence of melanin, the same pigment found in human skin and the feathers of some modern birds. Like hawks and eagles today, Tristan probably had patches of brown, black and grey.
“We now know from lots of fossils, in particular from China, that the relatives of velociraptor, and by extension velociraptor itself, was coated with feathers,” Barrett says. “They had very long, bird-like feathers on their forearms and downy feathers covering most of the rest of the body.”
Introduction: My name is Stevie Stamm, I am a colorful, sparkling, splendid, vast, open, hilarious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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