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Toothless Tyrannosaurs?
At least few visible teeth—a recent study in Science suggestsThin-Lipped Tyrannosaurs Hid Their Most Fearsome Weapon
It looks like the Jurassic World movies will need to redesign their apex predators, in the unlikely event they suddenly care about scientific accuracy.
We’ve been getting the mouthparts of theropod dinosaurs like T. Rex wrong for over a century...
Palaeontologists face the never-ending problem that skin and soft organs seldom fossilize, so animals must be reconstructed based on bones and teeth, with a little extrapolation from living species. Once artistic renderings are done, they often settle in the general public’s consciousness and prove very hard for subsequent evidence to displace.
Some of our most iconic dinosaur images involve T. Rex and other apex predators with exposed teeth, a conclusion possibly based on the permanent, and not at all reassuring, smile of the crocodile. However, this view has been challenged in a new paper...
https://www.iflscience.com/thin-lipped-tyrannosaurs-hid-their-most-fearsome-weapon-68231
It looks like the Jurassic World movies will need to redesign their apex predators, in the unlikely event they suddenly care about scientific accuracy.
We’ve been getting the mouthparts of theropod dinosaurs like T. Rex wrong for over a century...
Palaeontologists face the never-ending problem that skin and soft organs seldom fossilize, so animals must be reconstructed based on bones and teeth, with a little extrapolation from living species. Once artistic renderings are done, they often settle in the general public’s consciousness and prove very hard for subsequent evidence to displace.
Some of our most iconic dinosaur images involve T. Rex and other apex predators with exposed teeth, a conclusion possibly based on the permanent, and not at all reassuring, smile of the crocodile. However, this view has been challenged in a new paper...
https://www.iflscience.com/thin-lipped-tyrannosaurs-hid-their-most-fearsome-weapon-68231
So, this truly iconic view might be untrue. Dental wear patterns certainly do suggest that it is so. Sigh.
.webp
Fascinating research.
The actual paper (Theropod dinosaur facial reconstruction and the importance of soft tissues in paleobiology) is available Open Access (i.e. free) at:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7877