Bloodthirsty chomp-monster or sensitive lover? Time to rethink Tyrannosaurus rex | Brian Switek
We're over 66 million years too late to know what tyrannosaurus mating rituals entailed. Whether the immense carnivores courted like oversized albatrosses, offered gifts of semi-rotted triceratops meat, or simply got down to business without pretence is a vignette lost to Cretaceous time. But research published last week in the journal Scientific Reports has spurred headlines suggesting that the great and powerful T. rex might have been a sensitive lover.
The new study - perhaps to the chagrin of the authors - was not specifically about T. rex itself. Carthage College palaeontologist Thomas Carr and colleagues described a new species of tyrannosaur, Daspletosaurus horneri, excavated from the 75m-year-old rock of Montana. The specimen that forms the core of the description is gorgeous, with dark grey bones preserved in exquisite detail, and that palaeontological happenstance is what has set off the hubbub over tyrannosaur foreplay.
Continue reading...