5 Misconceptions About Tyrannosaurus Like “The Front Legs Were Too Small to Be Useful”

Tyrannosaurus is known as a representative dinosaur, but by 2023Possibility of getting lipsPublic knowledge about their appearance and ecology is constantly being rewritten by new discoveries. Abi Klein, a dinosaur researcher at the University of Southampton in the UK, has compiled five common misconceptions about the dinosaur.

Five things you're probably wrong about Tyrannosaurus
https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-probably-have-wrong-about-the-t-rex-220011

Myth 1: The dinosaur had poor eyesight
film”Jurassic Park“, There are pictures of Tyrannosaurus rex as if they had bad eyesight. However, because Tyrannosaurus had huge eyeballs the size of a grapefruit, it is believed that it could have seen with an accuracy five times that of a peregrine falcon and 13 times that of a human.

Tyrannosaurus also had excellent color vision, and like birds and crocodiles, the tyrannosaurus was able to see more colors than humans, and could also see ultraviolet light. Therefore, unlike the movie scene where you hold your breath and pass in front of the dinosaur, scientists believe it would have been impossible to trick the dinosaur by simply stopping its movements.

◆Misconception 2: Chickens are directly descended from Tyrannosaurus rex.
When you look at chickens, you may notice that they have dinosaur-like features like well-developed legs and scaly skin, so some people may feel they have something in common with Tyrannosaurus rex. In fact, this misconception is not entirely misplaced; In fact, all the birds are thought to belong to a closely related lineage of small carnivorous dinosaurs like Velociraptor.

“So birds are not only descendants of dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs themselves, to some extent,” Crane says. But it is wrong to say that chickens evolved directly from dinosaurs.

Early birds, such as Archeopteryx, had wings similar to those of modern birds, as well as their ancestors' teeth and long tails, and they appeared in the Jurassic period, millions of years before the evolution of tyrannosaurs.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge also published in 2020researchThey determined that the ancestor of modern ducks and chickens was the quail-sized dinosaur Asterornis. Astrornis, which lived during the time of the dinosaur, is thought to have survived the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaur, and subsequently evolved into birds, including chickens.

Based on these findings, Mr. Crane noted that “Tyrannosaurus is not so much an ancestor of modern chickens as it is a larger cousin of all birds.”

◆ Misconception 3: Tyrannosaurus' arms were too small to be useful.
Some illustrations of T. rex depict the palms facing down, but it is believed that they could not have faced their palms down, and instead held their hands facing each other, just as humans clap.

According to research that has reconstructed muscles from bone fossils, T. rex's arms were strong for its size and had a reasonable range of motion. Therefore, it is believed that Tyrannosaurus arms were useful in various situations.

So far, the most plausible uses that dinosaur scientists have come up with are capturing and dismembering prey, and communication between tyrannosaurs.

The tyrannosaur's arm was about 1 meter long, which is larger than a human arm, but certainly smaller than its giant body of 13 metres. This is a common trend among large theropods, such as those with a body length of 8 metres.carnotasaurusHis arms were only about 50 cm long, and the reconstruction of his arms was described as “looking like fingers growing from the top of his arms.”

by Fred Werum

◆Misconception 4: Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus lived in the same era
Like Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus is a popular dinosaur, so some dinosaur-themed toys and treats come in sets with Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus.

However, dinosaurs had a longer lifespan than many people imagine, and Tyrannosaurus lived about 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period, just before the asteroid impact that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs. In contrast, famous Jurassic dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus and Diplodocus lived about 150 million years ago. So, by the time the Tyrannosaurus was roaming the Earth, the Stegosaurus was already a fossil beneath its feet.

by Sheila Sund

◆Myth 5: Tyrannosaurus had scales
The theory that dinosaurs may have had feathers is a matter of debate among paleontologists. For example, fossils of the 9-metre-long Yutyrannus, a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, have been found covered in downy feathers.

Therefore, it cannot be said that Tyrannosaurus rex was also fluffy with feathers. Because they are huge andWarm-blooded animalsIf the Tyrannosaurus rex was covered with feathers, its body temperature would rise a lot and there would be a risk of overheating.

Fossilized, scale-like skin was also found in various parts of the tyrannosaur's body. So, Mr. Crane predicted, “I don't know for sure, but the actual T. rex would probably have been somewhere between a feathered form and a scaly body.”

Studying the body color of dinosaurs is one of the newest fields in paleontology, and researchers extract capsules containing pigments from feather cells and scales from fossils and analyze them to determine the colors and patterns of dinosaurs. identification. Although it is not yet known what color Tyrannosaurus was, it is known that dinosaurs had different colors and patterns such as red, rainbow colors and black.