All articles tagged with #t rex
A new study provides the first direct measurement of Tyrannosaurus rex body temperature, finding it ran at approximately 36.3°C (97°F). This temperature, comparable to modern elephants and humans, suggests the dinosaur was a warm-blooded endotherm capable of active predation and survival in diverse climates, including cold northern regions.
A Colorado high school teacher discovered the first known trackway of an adult Tyrannosaurus rex in North Dakota. The 23-foot trail, dated to 66.5 million years ago, offers rare insights into the dinosaur's walking speed and behavior.
Scientists have confirmed the discovery of the first trackway attributed to an adult Tyrannosaurus rex, found in North Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation. Dating to 66.5 million years ago, the 23-foot sequence of four footprints indicates the animal was walking at a brisk 3.5 to 4.5 mph. Discovered by a high school teacher in 2025, the find offers rare behavioral insights into T. rex movement, distinct from skeletal remains. Three of the prints are being airlifted to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for study and display.
A South Dakota rancher’s gut feeling led paleontologists to a 67-million-year-old T. rex skeleton unearthed on his land; now nicknamed Gus, the 38-foot fossil is headed to Sotheby’s with estimates up to $30 million, potentially delivering a multi-million windfall to the landowner’s widow under private-land fossil ownership laws.
A study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B analyzed 85 dinosaur species and found that tiny arms in T. rex and other giant carnivores are an evolutionary trade-off for increasingly large skulls; as skull strength rose to deliver more bite power, forelimbs shrank across multiple lineages around the world over roughly 180 million years, though their exact function remains unclear.
New fossil-based research argues that Tyrannosaurus rex forelimbs were vestigial—short and not suited for grappling prey—likely evolving for balance or limited support rather than hunting, with the massive skull and jaws doing the heavy lifting.
Polish brand Enfin Levé unveiled a handbag claimed to be made from lab-grown T-rex leather, priced around $600,000 for a Paris auction, but experts question the claim: the Montana fossil tissue sample may be bacterial rather than dinosaur flesh, and the bag’s material reportedly uses AI-generated synthetic collagen blended with chicken proteins, meaning it may be more chicken than dinosaur. If true, it isn’t dinosaur leather, but the episode highlights advances and debate around lab-grown, cruelty-free materials in fashion.
Scientists studying a Hell Creek Formation Edmontosaurus skull found a tooth lodged in its snout, a rare embedded-tooth fossil that lets researchers identify the attacker as Tyrannosaurus rex. CT scans show a frontal bite, the tooth’s serrations match T. rex, and bite marks suggest the predator continued feeding on the head after the kill, implying a direct encounter rather than distant scavenging.
A biomechanical analysis finds T. rex likely moved toe-first, similar to birds, enabling up to 20% faster speeds; a light 1.4-tonne T. rex could cover 100m in about 8.77 seconds, faster than Usain Bolt’s world record, with larger individuals still near 10.5 seconds.
Fossil data from the Dry Mesa Quarry reconstruct a dense Jurassic food web in which abundant hatchling sauropods provided a reliable prey source for large predators, shaping predator dynamics across the Late Jurassic and helping explain how later giants like Tyrannosaurus rex could accumulate calories to grow to enormous sizes.
Recent fossil discoveries suggest that T. rex was not only a land predator but also capable of swimming, supported by evidence of fossilized swim traces and its hollow, buoyant bones, indicating it may have used swimming to expand its feeding opportunities, similar to modern birds like emus.
Recent research has revealed that the small predator previously thought to be a juvenile T. rex is actually a fully grown Nanotyrannus lancensis, rewriting the understanding of dinosaur growth, evolution, and ecosystem dynamics during the Late Cretaceous period, and introducing a new species, Nanotyrannus lethaeus.
A fossil named Jane, previously thought to be a juvenile T. rex, may actually belong to a new species called Nanotyrannus lethaeus, which is smaller and more agile, prompting a reevaluation of tyrannosaur classification.
Scientists have discovered that the 'dueling dinosaurs' fossil actually features a fully grown Nanotyrannus lancensis, not a juvenile T. rex, challenging long-held beliefs about T. rex growth and diversity, and revealing that multiple tyrannosaur species coexisted in the late Cretaceous period.
A fossil previously thought to be a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex has been identified as a different species, Nanotyrannus, which was a fully grown, agile predator with distinct physical features, prompting a re-evaluation of tyrannosaur evolution.