Tyrannosaurus Rex--The Tyrant Lizard King.

Some of you may have heard of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. You know, the bobble-headed dinosaur with comically teeny arms? And some of you may know that T-Rex was a pretty vicious dude, but just how vicious?
 
This "King of the Tyrant Lizards" wreaked havoc during the Late-Cretaceous Period, throughout what is now western North America. Being one of the largest theropods to ever exist, and standing at around 13ft tall, measuring up to 40ft long, and weighing about 7 tons, T-Rex sat smugly at the top of the food chain.

And don't let the seemingly useless micro arms fool you. Though they were certainly dwarfed by the massive size of this great beast, T-Rex's arms were still about 3ft long and could bench press more than 400lbs, which is three times more powerful than the average human. That's right, Tyrannosaurus Rex would have destroyed any one of you in an arm-wrestling match. So keep on laughing, chucklehead.

It's obvious by now that their arms weren't vestigial, so what the hell were these tiny limbs good for? Primarily, they were useful in grasping and stabilizing their prey. Because no one likes it when their dinner tries to escape them while they're devouring it raw. The arms were also used to push T-Rex off the ground if he fell during combat, which is actually WAY more important than it seems. If they didn't have this leverage, Tyrannosaurus Rex would have likely never survived as a species as they'd be stuck being giant roly-polies, writhing around helplessly on the ground while all the other dinosaurs pointed and laughed. But the hypothesized main purpose of these puny arms was so that T-Rex could enjoy some hot thrusting action. Screw calling it "doggie style", from now on it's going to be "T-Rex style".

You heard it here first, bitches.

So, what was it that made Tyrannosaurus Rex so damn terrifying anyway? His deadly banana teeth. T-Rex came equipped with around 50 teeth the size and shape of a banana, all nestled inside a 4ft long jaw. And that's not even the worst of it! Not only could they consume up to 500lbs of delicious dino in one bite, but they did it with a crushing force of 1,500-3,000lbs. In comparison, humans have a bite force of 175lbs. This means that Tyrannosaurus Rex had a chomping force three times the amount estimated for a great white shark, and 15 times the force of an African lion. Holy shit is right! And it might even get more horrifying...it's speculated that T-Rex might have had infectious saliva. Their tooth serrations may have held onto bacteria-infested carcass meat, making the already deadly bite an even deadlier, infectious bite, much like the Komodo dragon. Wonderful.
 
"But, Courtney, I heard that Tyrannosaurus Rex can't see objects if they're not moving. So if I just stood still, I'd be safe, right?"

Not a fucking chance.

You see, Tyrannosaurus Rex had a binocular range of 55 degrees. What is binocular range, you ask? It's the area that can be viewed by both eyes at one time. So, a wider range would mean better depth perception, and a greater depth perception means a better capacity to distinguish objects that are motionless or camouflaged. And since T-Rex had front-facing eyes set in a narrow skull, which created an overlap in fields of vision, this gave them pretty decent depth perception. Tyrannosaurus Rex could also discern objects 6km (or nearly 4mi) away, while we humans can only see shit 1.6km (or 1mi) away. Not to mention, these dudes had an amazing sense of smell, comparable to that of modern day vultures. So, if you ever crossed paths with this great tyrant, you'd essentially be fucked.
 
And don't even think about running away from this dreadful brute. Despite the fact that T-Rex probably didn't run, and only walked on its toes, he could still traipse about at a speed of 11-25mph. In contrast, the average person runs at a speed of 8mph, meaning that T-Rex could simply Michael Myers chase your ass for a late night snack. So, yeah, regardless of the idea that Tyrannosaurus Rex may have been covered in fuzz like a baby chick, and possessed amusingly minute arms, and had a tendency to tiptoe through the tulips, he certainly wasn't someone you'd want to fuck with. Unless, of course, you wanted to play a little game of "Monkey in the Middle". Cause that shit would be funny as hell.

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Velociraptor VS Deinonychus.

If I asked what your favorite dinosaur was, most of you would likely say "Velociraptor!", and I wouldn't blame you for that as Velociraptors are freaking bad ass. However, if your opinion of the awesomeness of said raptors came from the movie Jurassic Park, I'd have to tell you that you're a fucking idiot. Well, okay, YOU'RE not the idiot...Hollywood is. Though there's no denying that the vicious theropods from Jurassic Park were the best part of the movie, the dinosaurs which were ACTUALLY depicted were Deinonychus. "Dei-who?" you're asking. I'll explain...

You see, Velociraptors were actually the size of a modern day turkey, which is nowhere near as large as the predators presented to us in the movie. These lil guys could grow up to 6ft long (nose to tail), 1.6ft high (at the hip), and weighing up to a staggering 33lbs. All the characters in the movie would have needed was a sturdy broom and they could have simply swept those guys right into that freezer. 

Deinonychus, on the other hand, could grow up to 12ft long, 5-7ft tall, and weigh anywhere from 150-200lbs. Yeah, that seems a little more terrifying of a creature than a turkey which weighs no more than a toddler. 

Both dinosaurs come from the genus known as dromaeosaurs, which means they do share similar characteristics. Dromaeosaurid theropods were bipedal, feathered carnivores who carried a lightly built skull complete with sharp, backwardly curved teeth, and large sickle-shaped claws on the second toe of each foot. The incredibly sharp claw was likely used to tear into or restrain struggling prey, and could probably open a Capri Sun like nobody's business.

So how else do these two terrors differ from each other? Let's start with Velociraptor. This dinosaur lived during the Late-Cretaceous, in what is now known as Mongolia, approximately 75-71 million years ago. There are more than a dozen described fossils of this "Speedy Thief", which is more than any other dromaesaur. They're best identified by their skulls, which grew to nearly 10in long, and had a unique up-curved concave on upper surface and convex on the lower. Their jaws were lined with 26-28 widely-spaced teeth, each more strongly serrated on the back edge. Though these guys were feathered, they were likely not capable of flight due to their size and shortened forelimbs. A plight fellow theropod T-Rex knows all too well.

Deinonychus, while not only being much larger than his cousin, also achieved celebrity status without the help of Steven Spielberg. Deinonychus ("Terrible Claw") lived in the forests of what is now Montana, Wyoming, and Oklahoma during the Cretaceous Period about 115-100 million years ago. They were pack hunters, unlike their previously mentioned relatives, which allowed them to take down much larger dinosaurs as a group so no one was sitting alone at the kiddie's table during Sunday brunch. Their skulls could grow to a length of 16 inches, and had extremely powerful jaws, each equipped with 60-70 curved, blade-like teeth. These fellas weren't nearly as agile as other theropods, and were certainly not as quick on their feet as Jurassic Park made them seem. They were also complete morons, being no smarter than an infant. So, unless you know of any babies who excel at opening doors, there is no way Deinonychus would have ever been able to break into any kitchens to scrounge for late-night snacks.

What Deinonychus DID do was revolutionize the way scientists thought about dinosaurs. You see, some scientists discovered fossils which showed a Deinonychus nesting on top of its eggs. Why was this finding so important, you ask? It shows that Deinonychus probably used body heat transfer as a means of incubating its eggs, much like modern birds do today. This finding led to the idea that dinosaurs were not, in fact, cold-blooded creatures, but were probably mostly warm-blooded. This also led scientists to start comparing bone structure between dinosaurs and birds, which resulted in finding tons of common characteristics between the two. So, even though Velociraptor has all the fame and a much more bad ass of a name, Deinonychus will forever be the one who got us to never look at chickens the same way again.

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Myth-squashing!

Science, like most everything else in the Universe, keeps evolving and, as a result, so does our information regarding the awesome lives of dinosaurs. Between constant technological advances, discovery of new species, and reexamining existing species, what we think we know about these "Great Lizards" becomes extinct...or so it seems.

Let's start with the fact that dinosaurs are not actually lizards.

I know, your mind is blown already.

In reality, they represent a separate group of reptiles who did not exhibit your typical reptilian characteristics. Dinosaurs were all terrestrial creatures, with characteristically upright legs, not splayed postures like crocodiles. This also means that your beloved aquatic reptiles (like Plesiosaurus) and pterosaurs (for example, Pteranodon...otherwise known as Pterodactyl) are not considered dinosaurs. While they all belong to the group known as archosaurs, they are about as related to dinosaurs as we are to kangaroos.

The taxon Dinosauria is made of two groups: Ornithischia ("bird-hipped", which are your horned, armored, and duck-billed dinosaurs) and Saurischia ("lizard-hipped", which are your sauropod and theropod dinos). You wanna guess which group modern birds evolved from? If you said ornithischians, you'd be super fucking wrong. Birds descended from theropods, which includes such favorites as Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptor. You know what else this means? That T-Rex and its theropod buddies were almost all covered with feathers at some stage in their life cycles. That's right...big, scary T-Rex likely sported luscious, bright-colored feathers as it chomped on its dinner. This gives a whole new meaning to the word "fierce".

Dinosaurs were also not the first reptiles to inhabit the Earth. The first reptiles evolved in the late Carboniferous Period, more than 300 million years ago. True dinosaurs didn't pop into the picture until well into the Triassic, some 230 million years ago. Between this period, various forms of archosaurs and synapsids dominated the planet. Where archosaurs eventually split into pterosaurs, crocodilians, and dinosaurs, synapsids are the ancestors of mammals. You read right, mammals lived alongside dinosaurs, and did so for more than 150 million years. Synapsids were small, nocturnal creatures, weighing as little as two grams (freaking adorable, right?) and they remained small until the death of the "Great Lizards" 65 million years ago. Once the mighty, brooding beasts perished, they left a mass of larger niches for animals to fill, thus allowing synapsids to grow in size and in number. 

Wait, you thought dinosaurs were so huge because of different gravity or higher levels of oxygen? You'd be dead fucking wrong...again. Gravity hasn't changed since the time of the dinosaurs, so stop blaming it for things it didn't do! And, despite what you may have heard, the oxygen levels may have actually been lower during the Mesozoic than they are now. So how did so many dinos become so incredibly large? If you read my post on sauropods, you'd know the answer already, ya jerk. Their awesome size is due to special air sacs, which made their skeletons lighter without sacrificing strength. Dinosaurs were also able to reproduce by laying small clutches of eggs all over, which allowed them to avoid the constraints that prevented other land-dwelling animals from getting larger.

Is there still something left of your brain? Well, hold onto your butts...

Did you know that Tyrannosaurus Rex did not, in actuality, live alongside Apatosaurus (known by his stage name, The Dinosaur Formally Known as Brontosaurus)? Not only did these two great beasts live in different regions, they lived in completely different time periods. Apatosaurus lived from about 154-150 million years ago, during the Late-Jurassic, whereas T-Rex lived 67-66 million years ago, during the Late-Cretaceous. This leaves a gap of more than 80 million years between the two, which is 15 million years LONGER than the gap between us and dinosaurs altogether. How in the hell did we ever get the idea that these two frolicked in the fields together in the first place? Probably because "The Land Before Time" wouldn't have been as intense, yet heart-warming, of a story without it.


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