Of
course many of us believe that the greatest dinosaur that ever lived was
good ‘ol T rex. So this link on our museum site will just be about
Rex. First let’s say that no one really knows that much about Tyrannosaurs
rex or “the king of the tyrant lizards.” Why is that?
Simply put because he or she exists no longer on our planet. That may be good or most of us would be called snacks and a few big brats (mac’s?). So all we can do is make educated guesses from the few dozen partial skeletons that we have found fossilized. How much can you learn from a rock?
Actually, quite a lot when put together with other evidence such as fossilized track-ways, other dinosaurs fossils that show interactions with Rex (such as teeth marks), coprolites (fossilized doo do), deductive guesses by trained and untrained paleontologists, and comparisons with other related ancestors (such as Albertosaurus) and modern reptiles.
One of the best descriptions of a T rex has been attributed to noted paleontologist Robert Bakker who called it “The Road Runner from Hell.” This is fairly accurate. In addition we know that the closest living relatives are Birds and Crocodiles. By comparing these two species we can get a very good idea of what the T rex may have been capable of.
The following pages and links will be a compilation of many of the thoughts on the museum’s name sake dinosaur. Remember, this is edutainment so if there are some errors, disagreements, and other opinions; that is all part of the learning process.