The T-Rex Conundrum

One of the problems with this type of forum is that an idea might seem like a good idea at one time, and soon after a while doing some background research, while typing it up, as the hours slip away during the nights, you start to question yourself. Why did I ever want to write this? What can I possibly say or add to this topic? 

Those are valid questions in general, and sometimes I think I may actually be able to add something. I'm not so sure this is one of those times. 

Maybe that's what you get with "Caliboy in Brooklyn": the running internal monologue of existential ontology.

The following post I started last week, and it grew out of a separate idea I had in the Plate Tectonics and an Evolutionary Precipice post. I wanted to discuss Tyrannosaurus Rex. The more shows I saw, the less I was convinced T-Rex was a hunter more than a scavenger. Most serious scholarship points away from that, but still...

...Still, I'm not a paleontologist. So why am I wasting my time with this? I think because this topic is at the heart of what this blog was about back in April and May in 2009, the first two months it was live: conversations with friends that I was having with the aether and not with them.

This of this as a conversation with the aether.

1.

Why should there be a conundrum? The Tyrannosaurus Rex is the King of all Earthly Monsters, Kong's claymation enemy, and the hero at the end of the Jurassic Park film.

How the T-Rex became the King Monster is what I'm after. Ultimately it's because it just was, but in the years between the early stages of paleontology and the newer discoveries, I wanted to make sure that we were worshiping the correct marvel of terrestrial apex predator. Worshiping is a weird word for what I'm getting at. Most people on the street may know a few separate dinosaurs, at least from memory or school or movies or something. One probably is the triceratops, with the three sharp horns; another that's recognizable is stegosaurus, with the cool offsetting spinal fin plates and spiky tail. But the one dinosaur you'd truly expect someone off the street to be able to name is T. Rex.

2.

The Name. Tyrannosaurus Rex. That is a badass name if ever there were one. Dickensian as well as cool-sounding, it's the only animal that is best known as its full binomial classification name.

Not only does the animal have a super grip on the imagination of children everywhere (and plenty of adults and inner-children), it has the greatest name to boot.

3.

Some of the reasons that provided the motivation for this thought exercise post are that T-Rex wasn't the biggest predator back in the day, and some folks don't think it was even a predator, the this beast was primarily a scavenger. If T-Rex was just a scavenger, and not the biggest of the baddies, then what are really saying? Is T-Rex a scared cow, of does it need to have a Cartesian epistemological trial by fire?

The trial by fire will strengthen the bond of imaginational importance, or at least give us something new which to devote daydreams.

4.

Part 1: T-Rex vs Gigantosaurus/Carcharodontisaurus

Tyrannosaurs were giant theropods, and a theropod was a bipedal predator. It turns out that T-Rex was smaller, on average, than both Gigantosaurus, which got its name from being a larger version of T-Rex, and the even larger Carchrodon- (jagged-tooth) -tosaurus. Carcharodons are mostly used in taxonomy with sharks, since their teeth are serrated knives. This large dino had serrated knife-like teeth, as opposed to our buddy T-Rex.

How come tyrannosaurs are the one we recognize in this group? Well, Gigan. got their name out of reference to T-Rex, and Carch. is also a Johnny-come-lately with a ridiculous name. Neither had the ecological range nor the volume of success in terms of years that mark the tyrannosaurs

5.

Part 2: T-Rex vs Spinosaurus

Now this one is different. Spinosaurus gets the mercury moving. Here we're not dealing with just a bigger T-Rex with less time on earth, we're dealing with the largest theropod ever, equipped with ridiculously strong arms(!), and a nasty temperament that would not be afraid to rob the biggest female tyrannosaur of her dinner.

Why haven't we heard about the spinosaurs? Because we're just getting to know them. Here's one of the fullest skeletons, on display in Japan:

It gets its name from the spines that come off of their vertebrae. Their skull was much more crocodilian than the T-Rex family. It was longer and more slender, and it had less jaw muscle development than tyrannosaurs, but that's kinda the trade-off with the arms. Bigger and stronger arms means smaller jaw. The spines were actually elongated pieces of vertebrae, so if they were to fall over and get their spines broken, the spinosaurus would be dead.

Here's a relativity picture that shows spinosaurus in relativity with T-Rex (from Wikipedia):

The first real collection of spinosaurus bones were lost during WWII, not to long after being discovered, and by then tyrannosaurs were firmly entrenched as the Monster King.

The spinosaurus has an extra set of teeth in its mouth to help shove food down a gullet.

6.

T-Rex the Scavenger?

There have been a few paleontologists that have supported the idea that Tyrannosaurus Rex was primarily a scavenger. The support for this comes from some of the evidence: their arms were mostly useless; they had the best developed sense of smell out of any dinosaur, something that would greatly help a scavenger; their teeth aren't the serrated steak knives that others active predators were; triceratops and ankilosaurus were dangerous prey...

It turns out that there's enough proof that suggests that tyrannosaurs 1) actively hunted both triceratops and ankilosaurus, among other things; 2) used their bulky head as part of their weaponry; 3) routinely suffered mortal wounds while hunting; 4) and scavenged opportunistically.

7.

Physical Attributes

Maybe it's the teeth. Maybe the T-Rex's teeth are one of the things that help give it an edge.

Albertosaurus was a contemporary of tyrannosaurus, only slightly shorter with a skull nearly as long and tall, but less thick, full of serrated teeth. A mostly overlooked cool dino, it was likely the only predator that hunted sauropods that were bigger than it.

Well, if you wanted to slice hunks of meat off a mountain of meat that was running away from you, serrated teeth and a thin skull would work wonders for you.

T-Rex? Nope. Tyrannosaurs had spikes for teeth. Cylindrical cones in the largest and most powerful land predator's jaw ever on earth.

Spikes.

They were able to use their bulldozer skull and spike teeth to crush and crunch their way through prey. Also their eyes were stereoscopic and binocular, a development that is best used today for predators, which leads to the hunter theory. Also, healed wounds on triceratops helps the cause.

8.

Allosaurus begat Tyrannosaurus...

Notice that there was no Allosaurus vs Tyrannosaurus above. They've never been in direct competition. There are tons and tons of fossils of both, and they were from different eras. The Allosaurus was from the Jurassic, which was earlier than the Cretaceous when T-Rex was active, was smaller than the T-Rex, but faster. It was less developed in the brain area than T-Rex as well.

In common conceptions, the cool dinos were Allosaurus vs stegosaurus, and then, later, T-Rex vs triceratops.

Allosaurus was always my favorite, even before I was given Ricardo Delgado's The Age of Reptiles graphic novel starring Santo, an Allosaurus.

Spinosaurus probably won't ever reach the lofty levels of imagination inspirations that either Tyrannosaurus Rex, or to the lesser extant, Allosaurus reached in humans, young or old. Too bad.

9.

Maybe T-Rex does deserve its spot in the pantheon of Earthly Monsters.



[[And then watch it fizzle at the end, my steam gone...]][[What you get over here at "Caliboy in Brooklyn"!]]