14 DAY TRIAL // In a new study, researchers with the Geological Society of America present evidence that T. rex, a.k.a. the king of dinosaurs, as some like to call this ancient beast, was probably a cannibal.
The species populated forests in what is now North America during the late Cretaceous period and went extinct about 65 million years ago. Fossilized remains show T. rex would grow to stand about 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6 meters) tall and measure roughly 40 feet (12 meters) in length.
Its jaw alone was some 4 feet (1.2 meters) long, which explains why the dinosaur could easily crush bones and gulp down an astounding 500 pounds (230 kilograms) of meat in just one bite.
It's likely the species didn't shy away from cannibalism
In their report, the Geological Society of America researchers describe a fossilized tyrannosaur bone that was not long ago recovered from a site in Wyoming, US, and that tests revealed dates back to around 66 million years ago.
The bone displays distinctive teeth marks that the paleontologists say hint that, at some point, it was gnawed at by another tyrannosaur.
Since all the other dinosaur bones so far recovered from the Lance Formation paleontological site in Wyoming come from just two species, i.e. Tyrannosaurus rex and Nanotyrannus lancensis, one of these lost predators must be the culprit.
“The grooves were clearly those of an animal pulling the flesh off the bone - pulling in a direction perpendicular to the bone, in the same way humans eat a piece of fried chicken,” the research team explain in their report.
“This has to be a tyrannosaur. There's just nothing else that has such big teeth,” adds specialist Matthew McLain of Loma Linda University in California.
The plot thickens
What's interesting is that, according to some researchers, the supposed Nanotyrannus lancensis specimens dug out over the years are, in fact, T. rex juveniles that were classified as another species by mistake.
If this is really the case, then T. rex remains the only suspect to blame for the teeth marks documented on the tyrannosaur bone discovered and studied by paleontologist Matthew McLain and his colleagues.
In a previous study, specialists showed that T. rex had saw-like teeth designed to cut through meat and bones. As it turns out, it might be that the dinosaurs sometimes used these teeth to feed on one another.
