Tyrannosaurus Rex Is Not A Scavenger

Nagisa · Post by **Nagisa** » 28 Dec 2003, 04:07

Tyrannis: The primary predators in Alpha's Egg were Aucasaurus garridoi.

Anyway, an animal the size of T.rex wouldn't need a bite like a Komodo Dragon's (where food particles get stuck between the teeth and bacteria build up). Like in Little Das' Hunt, all that would be needed would be a good, strong bite in a vital point, and the prey would eventually just drop from shock, blood loss, and inevitable infection. I'm not saying a bacterial saliva is impossible, but it wouldn't exactly be requisite to make a T.rex's bite lethal.

As far as T.rex's land speed, an average 15 mph is probably a good estimate for top speed (between 10 and short bursts of 20, in other words). This would be all it needed, though, as its primary prey (large Ornithopods and Ceratopsians, like Edmontosaurus annectens and Triceratops horridus) were likely slower. For example, E.annectens' leg structure, when compared to a T.rex's, is much less built for speed if I recall correctly, meaning that animal, which weighed as much as a T.rex, was probably a slower runner.

Tyrannis · Post by **Tyrannis** » 28 Dec 2003, 12:21

Hey thanks Nagisa for giving me the name of the Aucasaurus I couldn't remember the name of it for the life of me. I believe that you're right about the blood loss when I was taking my lifeguarding course we were taught to always treat for shock a.) because it is a killer and b.) because it come up very quickly as in few minutes after the trauma so if a T-rex was tracking prey after biting a huge piece out of it, the longest it would like have to track it for would be an hour.

OneWingSephiroth · Post by **OneWingSephiroth** » 30 Dec 2003, 04:58

Well, I believe that Tryannosaurus Rex was able to run as fast as an African Elephant, for Tyrannosaurus had a better built leg for running than an African Elephant. Full grown male elephants can reach speeds of up to 27 mph and keep that speed to over 120 yrds, thats faster than a human sprinter across a football field.

I believe that Tyrannosaurus Rex for a short burst would've been equivelant to at least 20-25mph, I really doubt that it would've been able to reach the speed of 40mph...that's extremely fast for such a huge predator. However, Tyrannosaurus Rex would've been the quickest on its feet when compared to other large theropod dinosaurs such as Giganotosaurus, Characharadontosaurus, or Spinosaurus.

venom-raptor · Post by **venom-raptor** » 24 Jan 2004, 21:48

um... they used utah raptors i have a book about juraasic park and they said that insted of useing the smaller raptor [white tip].

Nagisa · Post by **Nagisa** » 24 Jan 2004, 22:06

venom-raptor wrote:um... they used utah raptors i have a book about juraasic park and they said that insted of useing the smaller raptor [white tip].

That's a falsehood. Utahraptors were much bigger than the Raptors in the movie. The closest possible match to the movie Raptors in the fossil record is Deinonychus antirrhopus, and even there the size is off by a foot or two. All the movie Raptors were were fictional constructions based on an existing group of dinosaurs, given the name of an existing genus to give them scientific validity.

AlphaChaosRaptor · Post by **AlphaChaosRaptor** » 25 Jan 2004, 03:14

I recall a footprint being discovered some years ago that suggested a speed of some 20-odd mph, with the calculations based on the fact that there was not a second footprint on that particular rock formation. I don't really remember where it is located, though.

dinodamone · Post by **dinodamone** » 15 Mar 2004, 12:42

I'm resurrecting this discussion and going back to the original subject: Tyrannosaurus Rex Is Not a Scavenger..

I watched a documentary (Horizons to be specific) about T-Rex. The theory had arisen in the programme that the Tyrannosaur is not actually a predatory hunter but a scavenger. I found it so interesting!
They commented on the fact that it's arms were so small that it is a very uncommon trait to see in any predator today, take the cheeter for example, who gets it's arms round a Zebra as it attacks. It was found that the T-Rex's arms made up only 2% of it's actual body length, where on comparison with a Velociraptor, whose arms made up 6% of it's body length, is quite a difference, given the size of it.
They also looked at the teeth, a Tyrannosaurs teeth are smooth to point whereas Velociraptor's are cerated like a knife or a sharks tooth.
This one guy, Jack Horner- believed that T-Rex was a scavenger because he was analyzing skeletons of the dinosaurs which had been killed by one and he found that where there were bite marks, it would've been impossible to bite unless already dead. He found the same thing on every dinosaur, so it looked like the animal had already been killed by something else, and T-Rex had come along and eaten the left-overs.
This other dude tried to prove him wrong by saying that he was analyzing a Herbivore's vertebrae and there were half bones where T-Rex had obviously bitten through bone but on TOP of the skeleton. I thought, bullSHIT.. T-rex could've bitten that when it was lying down. Lame theory!

Nagisa · Post by **Nagisa** » 15 Mar 2004, 15:53

dinodamone wrote:I'm resurrecting this discussion and going back to the original subject: Tyrannosaurus Rex Is Not a Scavenger..

I watched a documentary (Horizons to be specific) about T-Rex. The theory had arisen in the programme that the Tyrannosaur is not actually a predatory hunter but a scavenger. I found it so interesting!
They commented on the fact that it's arms were so small that it is a very uncommon trait to see in any predator today, take the cheeter for example, who gets it's arms round a Zebra as it attacks. It was found that the T-Rex's arms made up only 2% of it's actual body length, where on comparison with a Velociraptor, whose arms made up 6% of it's body length, is quite a difference, given the size of it.
They also looked at the teeth, a Tyrannosaurs teeth are smooth to point whereas Velociraptor's are cerated like a knife or a sharks tooth.
This one guy, Jack Horner- believed that T-Rex was a scavenger because he was analyzing skeletons of the dinosaurs which had been killed by one and he found that where there were bite marks, it would've been impossible to bite unless already dead. He found the same thing on every dinosaur, so it looked like the animal had already been killed by something else, and T-Rex had come along and eaten the left-overs.
This other dude tried to prove him wrong by saying that he was analyzing a Herbivore's vertebrae and there were half bones where T-Rex had obviously bitten through bone but on TOP of the skeleton. I thought, bullSHIT.. T-rex could've bitten that when it was lying down. Lame theory!

On the arms...

There's a difference in hunting style between a cheetah, Velociraptor, and Tyrannosaurus, however. A cheetah tackles its prey in mid-sprint, needing its forearms because it can't rightly take down a wildebeest at high speed with just its jaws. A Velociraptor uses its claws to both anchor itself to a larger prey, as well as rip & tear it until it bleeds out. Most large carnivorous dinosaurs, however, did not hunt with their forearms. Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Carnotaurus...these animals rely on their bulk and the strength of their head & neck muscles to basically bowl the target over. For these animals (even the Carnosaurs, who had decidedly large arms) to use their forearms would be impracitcal, because there's no way in hell even an Allosaurus could hold a multi-ton juvenile Sauropod. So evolution naturally phased the unnecessary limbs out in later designs.

On the teeth...

Whoever said that T.rex's teeth were smooth is an absolute blind idiot. Just look at a T.rex's tooth and you can clearly see the serrations. Not to mention look at just how much is rooted back into the jaw. These teeth were wide, serrated, and deeply anchored into the skull, all of which are characteristics of teeth used to kill. When combined with the T.rex's incredibly powerful jaw muscles, you have the sort of bite that would be utterly unneeded in the mythical "pure scavenger."

On the angle of T.rex's bite...

This means nothing, really. There was an Edmontosaurus annectens skeleton discovered once with bite marks of a T.rex on some vertebrae at the base of the tail. Thing is, these vertabrae showed signs of healing. Dead things don't heal...the T.rex bit into a living Edmontosaurus' back, the animal got away, and lived long enough for the damage done to the bones to crookedly heal.

As for bite marks that would have been impossible on a living animal...well...yeah...after you make a kill, you tend to eat it. This involves gnawing...on a carcass...one you yourself might have killed.

To say an animal is a "pure scavenger" is to say you have a living unicorn in your back yard. They're both mythical beasts. All predatory animals survive through a combination of hunting and scavenging. Fresh meat (a hunted kill) is preferred, though when easy prey is on short supply, a predator will not be above scavenging a kill. Lions hunt, yet also scavenge. Hyaenas scavenge, but also hunt. Tyrannosaurus is just like these animals. When it could make a kill, it made a kill. When easy prey wasn't around, it looked for a corpse.

Another flaw in the "pure scavenger" idea is that there couldn't have been enough corpses just conveniently lying around to satiate an entire population of eight-ton carnivores. Sure, nature is a cold and unforgiving place, but I doubt there was enough death going around to properly supply a massive eating machine with enough food to last it a lifetime. Ergo, hunting in conjunction with scavenging was a necessity.

T.rex did both. As does every meat-eating animal today, and every meat eating animal in the past (yes, Raptors scavenged...shocking, ain't it?).

Tyrannis · Post by **Tyrannis** » 15 Mar 2004, 20:17

hey DinoDamone I know you're new but please read up on the information before making conclusions from just one source ok? It gets really annoying if you don't and these theories have already been proven to fake.

dinodamone · Post by **dinodamone** » 16 Mar 2004, 16:22

Tyrannis wrote:hey DinoDamone I know you're new but please read up on the information before making conclusions from just one source ok? It gets really annoying if you don't and these theories have already been proven to fake.

Um.. i think i can write what i want here thanks very much. I just found it interesting and decided to mention is all.