Why does the mighty T-Rex, with his terrifying personality and sharp teeth, have ridiculously small arms? Researchers have been grappling with this question for many years. With time, Many theories have tried to explain this, sometimes noting that these small limbs served them to get up if they fell to the ground, sometimes to hold their partner during mating, or even to ensure the balance of their head and neck muscles. Theories that struggle to impress the entire scientific community and that a recent discovery could obliterate.
Based on recovered fossils At a mass dinosaur grave in UtahIn fact, several paleontologists have already established that tyrannosaurs did not in fact hunt singly, as was then thought, but rather in groups. Discovery Propel a Paleontologist Kevin Badiana Berkeley professor, to return to this thinking about small arms for the T-Rex, this time approaching the question from an entirely different perspective.
In an article published in the Scientific Journal of Paleontology, Acta Paleontology PolonicaThe paleontologist presents his theory. According to him, since the T-Rex hunted in groups and jostled around their prey to devour it, having small arms had an advantage: it allowed them to avoid accidentally chewing (or not).
T-Rex Crisis
Imagine the scene for a moment. Several T-Rex around the same carcass, chewing in all directions to try to get the biggest piece of fat. If the latter were equipped with long, proportional arms, they would no doubt try to catch the tempting meat with their claws. There was also no doubt that the unfortunate blow to the jaw would have regularly amputated these very long limbs, dragging them in the middle of the banquet. To avoid this, there is only one solution left: to reduce the length of these forelimbs across generations.
The hypothesis is gaining ground and finding similarities in certain animals of our time. Besides the Komodo dragon, crocodiles possess behavior one might imagine similar to that of the T-Rex. With their sharp teeth, it is not uncommon for accidents to occur between individuals of the same species rushing into the same cadaver. A video of a crocodile feeding in an Australian zoo, Shared by Huff Post, is a stark example. We understand T-Rex better now.
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