![]() For his study, published on August 11 in Communications Biology, Lautenschlager cataloged eye-socket size and shape from 410 previously documented archosaur skulls and modeled how varying sockets would affect the stresses that eating put on those skulls.īeyond just dinosaurs, other large archosaur predators during the same era also had unusual socket shapes. These can range from cavities that look like keyholes to compressed circles to wedge shapes, which all fit smaller eyes than could same-sized round sockets. ![]() Unlike modern animals’ round eye sockets, in large carnivorous dinosaurs, “we see all these strange eye socket orbital shapes,” Lautenschlager says. Skulls of different dinosaurs showing variation in eye socket shape ( stippled outline) Credit: Dr Stephan Lautenschlager, University of Birmingham “This is probably not efficient, even though it might increase the vision acuity,” Lautenschlager adds. Such large eyes could potentially consume up to 15 percent of the animal’s metabolic energy, meaning it would have to eat more just to maintain its huge eyeballs. rex’s eyes took up 20 percent of its skull in the same way some smaller dinosaurs’ eyes do, “we would have a massive eyeball 30 centimeters in diameter and 20 kilograms heavy,” Lautenschlager says. These proportions likely evolved because of its skull size: if one of a T. rex’s skull cavities would have accommodated eyes about the size of oranges in its meter-long head. A fossilized skull’s eye socket gives scientists a good idea of eye size. Such skulls can reveal a lot about an animal. Paleobiologist Stephan Lautenschlager of the University of Birmingham in England discovered this connection while digging through skull measurements of hundreds of extinct archosaurs-the taxonomic group that includes birds, crocodiles and all of their ancestors. A new study suggests that those squinty eyes could be a trade-off for powerful chomping jaws. But the seven-metric-ton predator, which hunted through the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, was not the only beast with these features: other large predatory dinosaurs also gazed through small eyes in their large head. Want to see for yourself? You can visit Sue at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.It was an unlucky dinosaur that came face-to-face with the beady-eyed glare and giant, toothy grimace of the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex. Sue’s skull weighs 600 pounds when it was alive, the dino probably weighed about 18,000 pounds-about as much as an RV. rex would be about the size of a small turkey, adults grew way beyond these feathered creatures. Named Sue after the fossil hunter who found it, the 13-foot-tall dino measures 42 feet from end to end.Īlthough a baby T. Rex for more than a hundred years, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that the most complete fossil was discovered in South Dakota. rex was no match for the giant asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Its name comes from the Greek words meaning “tyrant lizard king.” This “king” ruled over what’s now North America and Asia some 68 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. rex had a brain about twice as large as other dinosaur noodles, suggesting that it might have been more intelligent, with better vision and sense of smell, than its fellow dinosaurs. rex had a massive body a mouth full of 60 eight-inch-long, supersharp teeth and the strongest bite of any land animal-ever. (The smallest tyrannosaur, Dilong, was only about five feet long and weighed about 11 pounds.) But Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the fiercest predators of all time. rex appeared, but these dinos were puny compared to other giant predators at the time, like allosaurs, ceratosaurs, and spinosaurs. Other species of tyrannosaurs existed for a hundred million years before T. Then it throws its head back, tosses the flesh 15 feet into the air, and catches it to swallow it whole. With one powerful bite, it rips off a hundred pounds of meat. Moving quickly-about 12 miles an hour-the carnivore catches up to its prey. A 40-foot-long predator stomps through a forested valley in what’s now western North America, following its nose: The animal sniffs a tasty Triceratops nearby.
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