Tyrannosaurus rex is Latin for “tyrant lizard.” T.rex was a voracious meat eater. T.rex was one of the most vicious predators to ever walk the Earth’s surface. With razor-sharp teeth or a massive body and jaws powerful enough to crush a car. During the late Cretaceous period, 68 million years ago, this carnivore dominated the forested river valleys of Western North America.
Tyrannosaurus is a large theropod dinosaur genus. Tyrannosaurus, also known as T.rex, is one of the most well-known theropods.
Species
T.rex is divided into three species based on leg bones and teeth. Tyrannosaurus imperator is a robust dinosaur with two incisor teeth; Tyrannosaurus rex is a robust dinosaur with one incisor; and Tyrannosaurus Regina is a slender dinosaur with one incisor.
Morphology
Teeth
T.rex’s massive jaws were lined with 50-60 serrated teeth measuring 9 inches in length. Some of the teeth were the size of a banana. T.rex grew a new tooth when it lost one.
Bite
Preserved bone and muscle fragments demonstrate that it took large, bone-crushing bites, consuming up to 500 lbs of meat in a single bite. T.rex has one of the most powerful bites of any living creature. It is powerful enough to crush the bones of its prey. T.rex had a bite force of 35,000 Newtons.
Jaws
Its 4-foot-long jaws were capable of swallowing an adult human.
Size
T.rex can grow to be up to 40 feet long and 12 feet tall. T.rex is estimated to weigh between 11,000 and 15,500 pounds (5,000 to 7,000 kilogrammes) with skin and flesh on its massive bones.
Skull
Tyrannosaurus had a bony skull that was designed to withstand biting and shear forces. They have strong nasal bones that help them withstand compression and shearing stresses, as well as skull lacrimal bones that help them withstand a variety of stresses.
T.rex’s skull was the stuff of nightmares. The fierce carnivore was built for crunching through its prey, with a stiff skull that allows it to channel all of its muscle force into one bite that delivers the pressure of a 6 tonne.
T.rex has a large head with forward-facing eyes, massive muscular jaws, strong serrated teeth, tiny arms, and a powerful tail. T.rex was the top predator at the time.
Body
The T.rex’s powerful tail and strong thighs counterbalanced its large head (the skull is 5 feet long) and allowed the T.rex to move quickly. The obvious weakness was its forearms, which were too short to reach its mouth but could have been used for sobbing prey or pieces of it.
T.rex’s arms evolved for vicious slashing at close quarters, allowing it to inflict deep wounds with four-inch claws.
T.rex’s back legs, on the other hand, were extremely powerful. Because of their powerful thighs, these were slow. The T.rex skeleton has 250-380 total bones. T.rex had hollow bones and air sacs, and some tyrannosaurids possessed feathers.
Eyes
T.rex’s eye sockets were frequently elliptical or keyhole-shaped. More primitive species, including the ancestor of large theropods such as T.rex, had more circular eyes. However, this appears to develop over the course of the animal’s life, as juveniles tended to have more circular eye sockets.
T.rex’s eye sockets played an important role in how the giant carnivore evolved some of the most powerful bites ever. Instead of being round, the skull of a massive, meat-eating dinosaur has a perplexing feature: a circular bony socket called an orbit.
Vision
Because their eyes were on the sides of their heads, they had limited depth perception. T.rex’s eyes were forward facing, giving them a wide binocular field of view.
Because cone cells predominated in their eyes, T.rex had fairly sharp colour vision. Because of the 4th type (short wavelength)cone cells, T.rex is a tetrachromat capable of distinguishing red, blue, and green as well as ultraviolet and turquoise. Binocular vision allows T.rex to see three-dimensional objects more clearly.
Sense of smell
Tyrannosaurus had large olfactory bulbs, which had a highly developed sense of smell and could sniff out carcasses over long distances, much like vultures.
Feeding Behavior
T.rex feeding behaviour has been extensively studied. According to the findings, T.rex lived a predatory or scavenging lifestyle. T.rex, like other tyrannosaurids, was distinguished by the shape of its teeth. At different stages of its life, T.rex preferred different prey. Many dinosaurs lack a hard palate, but tyrannosaurus has one like mammals and crocodiles. T.rex had a strong bony secondary palate on the roof of its mouth that protected it from torsional loads. T.rex was active at night and used its sense of smell to find food and navigate through large home ranges.
T.rex swallowed flesh and bone whole, throwing its head back to flop meat to the back of its mouth with its powerful neck muscles. This is referred to as “inertial feeding,” and it is a behaviour shared by birds and crocodiles today.
T.rex was a carnivorous dinosaur that ate herbivorous dinosaurs such as Edmontosaurus and Triceratops. They ate hundreds of pounds of food at a time by scavenging and hunting. A 6-ton T.rex requires 25004 calories per day, which is the equivalent of 80 people.
Male dinosaurs had internal fertilisation equipment. A mode of reproduction passed down from their ancestor. Male dinosaurs also had penises. Male T.rex had a long prehensile organ that allowed them to inseminate from a long distance.
Males had to get very close to their female partners during sex. However, we know less about female dinosaur reproductive anatomy than we do about male dinosaurs. To reach the female’s genitalia, the male may have thrown one leg over her tail and used a relatively long, extendible penis. In addition to the size of their hips, palaeontologists believe that females of this species were larger than males.
Dinosaurs all reproduce by laying eggs. However, determining the species is difficult because only a few dinosaurs have been discovered inside the fossil eggs.
A baby T.rex had more than a 60%chance of succumbing to predator, disease, or starvation during its first year of life. No T.rex eggs or nests have been found, but the fossils of other relatives of tyrannosaurus show that they laid elongated eggs, roughly 20 or more at a time.
T.rex lived for approximately 28 years. Scientists have no idea how it evolved from a hatchling to a powerful predator.
Spikes are a common feature of dinosaurs. Many of the tyrannosaurs that existed millions of years ago were lethal. Some are the fiercest apex predator in history. Velociraptor and T. rex are the best examples of the deadliest dinosaurs.
T.rex lived in a variety of environments. Their range’s landscape was very different 65 million years ago. Scientists believe T.rex live in humid areas and semitropical temperatures. T.rex lived in forests, near rivers, and in open, prey-rich areas. Mild seasons have been most favourite. Even the T.rex, the king of the jungle, did not live long.
T.rex’s arms were far from their puny. Each is thought to produce a hundred-kilogram bicep curl. So they weren’t completely useless. Some palaeontologists think that T.rex used its arms to prop itself up after sleeping so it could get back into its feet.
The earliest feathers were hair-like, according to the fossils. Over time, they evolved into fluffy branched forms and eventually become flat vaned feathers. The scientists also concluded that the adult T.rex was not just covered in scales, but also had a mullet of feathers on its neck, head, and tail. The original purpose of feathers was to provide insulation.
Preserved patches of skin in large derived, tyrannosaurus show scores while those in smaller, more primitive, forms show feathers. If large tyrannosauroids were endotherms, they would have needed to radiate heat efficiency.
Triceratops, an armoured prey, is tyrannosaurus, the most common rival. There were massive herbivores with three strong, powerful horns that could easily penetrate T.rex’s skin in one swing.
Owing to all its characteristics ex was the deadliest creature at that time. They did not live very long instead of having huge body mass and good predators.
Some scientists believe that they were extinct because of dramatic climatic changes. The tyrannosaurus rex was one of the most dangerous dinosaurs.[1]Age and growth dynamics of Tyrannosaurus rex† | Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences (royalsocietypublishing.org)[2]Osteology of Tyrannosaurus Rex: Insights from a nearly complete Skeleton and High-Resolution Computed Tomographic Analysis of the Skull: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology: Vol 22, No sup4 … Continue reading[3]https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1164225.pdf
Reviewed by:
Dr. Muhammad Khalid Mukhtar (Ph.D.)
University of Sargodha, Sargodha
References