Tyrannosaurus rex

[Smilodon-Rex]

(12-03-2018, 08:31 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(12-02-2018, 04:54 PM)brotherbear Wrote: Jack Horner had me convinced that T-rex was a scavenger, although I never accepted that he could have been 100% scavenger. I figured a scavenger who could displace raptors from a kill and one who would hunt and kill on occasion ( rather like a typical grizzly ). But there is a problem with this idea. If tyrannosaurs were pack-hunters, living in a group would be counter productive for a scavenger. So it must therefore be the other way around. If T-rex lived in groups, then he must have been a hunter who, like nearly all hunters, scavenged occasionally. 
-Just getting my thoughts together.

Forget Jack Horner, his "hypothesis" that T. rex was a 100% scavenger is a great fallacy with no head! Better read Dr Bob Bakker, he is a genius and probably one of the BEST Paleontologists in history!

T. rex was an animal that evolve to explote all the carnivorous potential like any other animal on land. It focus in evolve what is probably the most perfect predatory head, a mix of binocular vision, extraordinary olfact, an acute earing, all this togheter with a large brain and the most powerfull bite in any land animal. A creature don't evolve such a marvelous killing tool just to eat dead animals. 

T. rex also had longer legs in comparison with other carnivore dinosaurs, which allowed it to make faster turns and have a more cursorial living. Its long legs, muscular tail and balanced body with a huge hip bone, made an animal or perfect proportions, not as fast as modern predators but fast enough to captures the prey of its time, probably by ambush. Small arms were not a problema, specially when all the other body parts were well balanced.

Finally, there is a theory that T. rex  lived/hunted in group, but to be honest there is no direct evidence, just circunstancial evidence based in some groups of Albertosaurus (or Gorgosaurus, I don't remember) found by Dr Currie, but that is all. So I still inclined to belive that an animal like the T. rex was not necesary "grupal", but like some modern eagles, they probably lived in pairs for the raise of the offspring.

In a form, I see the T. rex like a tiger in India, most of its prey was smaller than it, with the exception of the biggest Triceratops and Edmontosaurus and probably the big sauropods like Alamosaurus. (sambar, nilgai, wild buffalo and gaur are the only prey that surpass the tiger in size in India). Its best (and only) competitors were the big Dakotaraptors which were like dholes. Now, IF we belive that Nanotyrannus was a valid taxon, then it would be like the leopards. Great coincidence, don't you think.

I will finish with the words of Dr Henry Orborn in 1916: "Tyrannosaurus is the most superb carnivorous mechanism among the terrestrial Vertebrata, in which raptorial destructive power and speed are combined".

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T-rex was a super massive predator and it may the greatest land live carnivore in earth history, not only the enormous body-size and awesome power, but also had the most excellent eyes and nose in all the gigantic theropods , it could observed over 5 kilometers far by eyes and smelled any potential prey nearly 10 kilometers far by excellent nose

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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