It cannot be denied that Tyrannosaurus rex it was one of the largest and most ferocious dinosaurs to ever walk the planet. But exactly how big could this terrifying dinosaur get? In a new investigation, researchers tried to answer just this question.
Paleontologists at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario, estimated that the largest T. rex could have reached 15,000 kilograms. The study was published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
Currently, the heaviest T. rex on record is a specimen nicknamed “Scotty”, which weighed 8,870 kg when alive.
According to the new research, the largest T. rex “would have been about 70 per cent larger” than Scotty, said study co-author Jordan Mallon, research scientist and head of paleobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature. “That almost doubles the size of T. rex,” Mallon told Live Science.
One of the largest and most ferocious dinosaurs
To reach this important conclusion, scientists first examined the fossil record, which shows that approximately 2.5 billion T. Rex once lived on Earth. However, only a small fraction – only 32 adult fossils – have ever been discovered, giving scientists a limited amount of information to draw upon.
Mallon and co-author David Hone, senior lecturer and deputy head of the department of education at Queen Mary University of London, also looked at population size and average lifespan to create a model of the largest possible T. rex.
They also took into account variations in body size based on sexual dimorphism – the size differences between the sexes of animals within a species, they write LiveScience.
The heaviest T. rex ever recorded
“We ended up building two models—one with zero dimorphism and one with strong dimorphism,” Mallon said. “If T. rex had been dimorphic, we estimate that it would have weighed up to 24,000 kg, but we rejected this model because, if it were true, we would have found even larger individuals by now.”
Using this data, scientists were able to model T. rex’s growth curve throughout its life – and estimate how big it might have grown as an adult. Mallon cautioned that until a T. rex of comparable size to the one in the model is found, the model’s conclusions are purely speculative.
Indeed, the investigation highlights how difficult it is for paleontologists to draw conclusions about dinosaur species from a very limited fossil record.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
