Tyrannosaurus rex
"Tyrant lizard king" (Osborn, 1905)
"tie-ran-oh-saw-russ rex"
The most famous dinosaur of all,
Tyrannosaurus rex, was also one of the very last. At 45 feet long and six tons, it was the biggest predatory dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous period. Its massive head, lined with unusually broad teeth, was a devastating weapon.
T. rex held prey in its mouth, its arms latching onto the victim's body in a death grip. Their short construction and inward facing palms acted like corn-on-the-cob forks, ideal for clinging onto prey and drawing them closer to the terrible mouth. Any struggling by the prey merely served to deepen its wounds and hasten its demise.
T. rex was not a particularly fast runner, but its long strides suggest it could still reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour. A large part of its brain was dedicated to an acute sense of smell, so it could sniff out a stinking carcass from miles away.
Mixtures of adult and juvenile tyrannosaur skeletons have been found together, suggesting that they may sometimes lived in small groups. This would have been an advantage in hunting, mobbing individual prey or spreading panic and confusion by attacking herd animals, all the better to help pick off a victim.
Living in the final two million years of the Cretaceous period,
T. rex became extinct along with the rest of the dinosaurs and many other prehistoric animals.
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Size: 45 ft long
