Introduction to Tryannosaurus Rex Behavior
On a typical day near the end of the Cretaceous Period, more than 65 million years ago, a bloody battle rages along the bank of a shallow river in what is now South Dakota. Two gigantic Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs, the largest and most fearsome predators of their time, attack each other with clashing jaws and powerful kicks from tree-sized, clawed hind legs. Finally, one T. rex gains an advantage and clamps its long teeth onto the other combatant's head. Even the huge and thickly muscled skull of the victim cannot resist the power of the deadly, bone-crushing bite that follows. The vanquished dinosaur bellows in agony and then falls dead. The victor limps away into the dense forest bordering the river, leaving the torn carcass of its foe to rot at the river's edge.
Although the tyrannosaur's flesh soon decays, its skeleton is covered by sediment, layers of sand, mud, and fine mineral particles deposited by the river. Over millions of years, these layers are compressed by additional sedimentary deposits and eventually turn to stone. During this process, water seeps into the porous bones, depositing minerals that transform them into fossils. Over time, the climate changes. The river dries up, and the forest turns to grassland. Finally, winds, rains, and floods wear away the soil to create desolate “badlands.” And then one day, the relentless erosion starts to reveal the fossilized skeleton of the T. rex.
Although this scenario is imaginary, it may be close to the mark. In 1990, amateur fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson, working in the South Dakota Badlands, discovered the preserved bones of a T. rex that may have died in just such a battle and been fossilized in just such a way. Excavations by a team from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota, soon revealed the well-preserved remains of a Tyrannosaurus with head wounds that may have resulted from a deadly fight. The fossil, nicknamed Sue after its discoverer, was the most complete T. rex ever found, with almost 90 percent of the bones accounted for. In 1997, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago purchased the fossil of Sue, and in May 2000 a reconstruction of the skeleton went on display at the museum.
While the Field Museum paleontologists (specialists in ancient animal life) cleaned the rock from the skeleton and prepared the bones for exhibit, researchers elsewhere studied other T. rex remains to learn more about these awesome creatures. They studied bite scars on the fossilized remains of T. rex prey and the contents of fossilized tyrannosaur feces (solid body waste). The researchers also used high-tech imaging devices to learn more about the anatomy of the dinosaurs. And they returned to excavation sites to look for clues to how T. rex lived. Although questions remained in 2000, the combined efforts of many investigators had already led to a better understanding of these monsters of the prehistoric world.
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