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Tyrannosaurus rex
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The second Scotty's story, whose the remains form the biggest t-rex's skeleton unearthed till now.
I was watching the Tyrannosaurus rex of "Prehistoric Planet" and of course the 5 chapters of the series and I found it AMAZING!
 I know that is not perfect and there is a lot of speculation (minimum in the case of the T. rex, by the way), but is certainly a magnific point of view about the animals of that time and I absolutelly loved the T. rex. Look at this beauty: *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author It is, from my point of view, the most accurate T. rex ever show, surpassing all of the other documentaries and movies at this moment. Although I would prefer a little more featers on it, I think that fairly acceptable in this moment. It clearly shows how massive was this animal with 13 meter long and 3.8 meter tall at the hip, and its bulkiness support its estimation of 9 tonnes of body mass. Certainly the biggest terrestrial carnivore that ever lived (found until now, of course). Other thing that I found lovely was the young T. rex, it was incredible realistic, check them:  *This image is copyright of its original author I liked how they depicted them, like a real animal with natural behaviours and not like a "movie monster" that despite been the image of they logo, it is used just like a "boxing bag" to just show how powerfull is the new "villian" in the movies (cog cog...Jurassic saga...cog cog  ). I will like to show this comparative images tha I found in the web:  *This image is copyright of its original author I love both designs, but the arms in the one of the "Walking" saga are terrible.  *This image is copyright of its original author I love "Rexy", she was the perfect T. rex for me, but now that I know more about the real T. rex and how it was and lived, I see that Rexy is innacurate and no longer support her form, but is still a good "movie monster" for me and she have an speciall place in my heart. Now, let's check the differences in the heads:  *This image is copyright of its original author Certainly the head of the PP T. rex is far more accurate than the one in JP/JW. Finally, to most notable new feature of T. rex, it could swim very well!  *This image is copyright of its original author I certainly advice to see the documentary and AFTER that, watch the movie of Jurassic World. Other animal that is winning fame in these days thanks to both shows is the Therizinosaurus, which curiosly is always angry and fighting in all the shows where it is showed! 
A very very interesting and fascinating video about T-Rex, its anatomy, its biology and so on, but, unlucky for you, in french. I will try to listen it again and to sum up the different points raised.
About #243: Chapter one.
Intro: We count around 800 to 900 dinosaur species, so why a long video about the only one T.-rex ? Because T.-rex is the most famous fossil ever known and also one of the latest to have been disappeared, thus the fossil record is very very big. And this, from the youngest ones to the adult forms. We know for example that the "Nanotyrannus" was only a juvenile T.-rex, never a distinct theropod specy. T.-rex is the most famous dinosaur specy in front of which anything isn't refused. For example the Boeing industry allowed to obtain the famous T.-rex Sue's endocran by scanning its skull. At 5mn00sec: the Sue's endocran. As T.-rex is an iconic animal we are able to debunk some untruths about it, in movies such Jurassique Park 1. For example at 17mn:22 sec, a famous scene of the JP 1: Allen Grant holds the little girl just in front of the T.-rex's snout by saying her: "If you don't move, it will not see you !". Yes, it's true because just in front of the big T.-rex's snout there is a "dead angle".  *This image is copyright of its original author But if it wasn't able to see you, it would clearly feel you and how ! Thus, this scene is a fake. To be continued...
About #243: chapter 2
Back to this Jurassic Park 1 scene (7mn.20 sec). Just in front of the T.-rex's snout, he couldn't see you because of the "dead angle", but it could feel you and hear you breathing. 11mn: olfactory lobe of T.-rex, allosaurus, edmontosaurus. Well developed, thus T.-rex was clearly able to sniff you, but relatively to its size the T.-rex's olfactory lobes weren't that big, like the extant crocs for example. And crocs aren't specially scavengers, thus T.-rex wasn't either. 17mn:22 sec: "If you don't move, it will not see you", so was the T.-rex's vision based on movement ? We clearly don't know it. On the other hand, we are sure T.-rex had a binocular vision. Very useful in case of a predatory behaviour. 23mn:40sec: The sclerotic ring arond the eye allows to reconstitute the eye form. Problem, we don't know the T.-rex's sclerotic ring. Only the juvenile gorgosaurus's one. It's small so we believe it was small too for the T.-rex. But it's only a speculation because the gorgosaurus isn't the next of kin of the T.-rex. If the eye was small we can speculate T.-rex was rather diurnal, no more. 26mn:50 sec. The T.-rex's ear lobe isn't developed as it is for the deinonychus or the archaeopteryx, thus the T.-rex wasn't an agile animal, and the stabilisation of its sight wasn't good. So we can tell that the T.-rex didn't actively hunt, only by ambush. T.-rex was an ambush predator. Other fact: the T.-rex's cochlea is long, it implies that the communication between them was possible. As the eardrum is big, they can produce low frequency sounds. Thus the T.-rex's roar of the Jurassique Park movies is only a fantasy. Like the extant crocs, T.-rex has numerous "face biting", bite marks, everywhere on the skull. Social bites among the T.-rex community. To be continued...
About #243: continuation and end.
Yes, T.-rex have some mark bites everywhere on the face, it implies numerous dominance displays between them. Such "social marks" are currently watched among extant crocodilians. So, did the T.rex have lips ? Apparently no, "The searchers don't care about it" and the movies like to show the things of which they are confident, i.e. the teeth. The most T.-rex's related (birds, crocodilians...) didn't have lips, so the T.-rex neither did. Brain and behaviour: The T.-rex's brain must have weighed 300-400 grams, it's that of a young chimpanzee (which weighs 15-25 kilos, while the t-rex 9 tons). It's very similar to the croc's one, linear even tubular. No neo-cortex, it doesn't do too much for a social behaviour, only for the basic ones: to eat, drink, hunt and mate, like the "basic birds" (thus parrots and ravens/crows are "out of competition")... It also reinforces the predatory habits rather than the scavenger' ones. But a solitary predator hunting by ambushs, not by hunting in prides. Not enough evolved for that. 1h:50mn:26sec. : photo of a T.-rex's teeth inside the hadrosaur's tail and cicatrisation "callus" mark. It proves that the edmontosaurus was alive after the T.-rex's aggression, so the T.-rex was a predator, an active predator, enoughly for that we see this behavior registered in the fossil record. It hunted relatively slow preys, essentially the triceratops and the hadrosaurs. We are amazed by the hallucinating power of the jaws. The temporal, masseter and pterigoidus muscles have titanic clips on the skull, nothing to do with the other theropod predators like allosaurus and giganotosaurus. The T.-rex's tooth aren't serrated, they were banana shaped, 25 centimeters long with 15-20 centimeters plunged into the bone. They were grinding pistons, the more the prey was struggling, the more the jaws were tightening. Once the prey is grabed, it's over ! We can speak of a winning bite. The T.-rex could perhaps die as pierced by the triceratop's horns but if it has biten the ceratopsid before, this one is dead, screwed. So at 2h:02 mn the famous photo of the fight between T.-rex and spinosaurus in the Jurassic Park 3, as soon as the spino is grabed by the t.-rex, the fight is over, no question that the spino would be able to escape, it's a total fake. Did the T.-rexs hunt in prides ? No, we only have some T.-rexs print marks in the same direction, it's all, it doesn't prove anything (were they printed at the same moment ?). No one theropod did hunt in prides, even the raptors (the velociraptor's skeleton found with the protoceratop's one proves just one thing: it was alone). The only one clue of a social habits we have among t.-rexs are the biting marks on the face: juveniles playing, dominance marks but it's over. The juveniles and subadults didn' t chase the preys waiting for the adults to kill them. The most realistic hunting scene we have in the movies is the T.-rex killing a gallimimus in the J.Park I. It grabs the prey and shakes it because the tooth are very embedded in the flesh. The only one factor we can refutate: the gallimimus (200-300 kilos) is a too small potential prey for the T.-rex. End
2 T.-rex through Procreate...
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (09-02-2022, 12:40 PM)Spalea Wrote: About #243: continuation and end.T rex is known as one of the brainiest dinos isn't it? And reptiles do exhibit parental care right? I think absence of neocortex is not a sign of low intelligence!.
@"Bitishannah"
About #248: " T rex is known as one of the brainiest dinos isn't it? And reptiles do exhibit parental care right? I think absence of neocortex is not a sign of low intelligence!. " A 300-400 gramme brain for a 9 tons body isn't that much (an extant 5 tons elephant is a 5 kilos-brained animal). The narrator readily compares the t-rex to an extant croc which hasn't a developed parental behavior, that's the least one can say. The mother croc moves the babies into the water just after the hatching and what else ? It's all ! Perhaps the mother t-rex could stay near the nest in order to protect it and when the cubs were born they can watch their mother and learn/retain a little about it. Mimetic behavior, taking into accountthe fact they were very weak and small compared to the adults and reacting accordingly, yes, but I think it's all... The raptors (velociraptors, troodons, deynonychus, and so on...) with a less weighted brain (perhaps 200-250 grams) for a much lighter body weight (80, 100, 200 kilos) should have been much more performing and could be able to adopt an efficient dynamic group. 
@johnny rex :
About #250: the link you gave... https://allthatsinteresting.com/t-rex-true-size Yes interesting but, for the moment, only purely speculative. At first supposing that 2,5 billion of t.rex roamed the Earth, and from that of course it's very easy to state we know nothing about T-rex. I don't know but this number of 2,5 billions of T-rex having roamed through the Earth (for the moment only a part of the North America continent, Alberta and Montana essentially) during 2-3 millions years. We are speaking about an apex predator... this figure seems a little too overestimated... Personally I don't believe at all "a 5 tons T-rex" when we are depicting an adult t-rex. It is said a spinosaurus could weigh 15 tons. It's absurd if we compare both skeletons, T-rex and spinosaurus. Spinosaurus close to a t-rex is a gracile theropod. He certainly didn't weigh more than 10 tons. In this case t-rex could have weighed 12 tons easily. Your link speaks about a 33.000 pounds t-rex... Why not ? The fact is: the fossilization is an exceptional event. And because of that we don't know yet anything about dinosaurs. We're only speculating about exceptional events. (12-30-2022, 01:56 PM)Spalea Wrote: @johnny rex : Yes, those are just speculations as the author noted in the article. Maybe it is possible there are much larger specimens out there. Not just Tyrannosaurus rex, but other dinosaurs as well. But until more specimens are discovered, this is just a guesstimation.
@johnny rex :
This morning I doubted this number of 2,5 billions T.-rex having roamed on the Earth during their "geological lifetime", the geological time during which the species t.-rex existed... But finally, it's very possible. I don't know if we can reason like this but 2,5 billions t.-rex having roamed during 2,5 millions years, that means that during every moment there were around 1.000 adult t.-rex roaming in their territory. As they were apex predators, they had to defend their territory against intruders of the same species. I can believe that, being apex predators, they were in possession of a very large hunting territory: 1000 km2 ? 1000 X 1000 = 1 million km2. And 1 million km2 approximately is equal to the Alberta area plus the Montana area (1.060.000 km2 but let us not quibble with that) where mostly T.-rex fossiles have been deterred. So, 2,5 billions T.-rex having roamed on Earth is a very plausible estimation. |
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