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Sinking into a Tyrannosaur Rex in the wild would have been a really scary thing for just about any animal that roamed the Earth between 65 and 80 million years ago. for an obvious reason.
According to New York Post, the mighty meat eater was huge and had a mouth built to turn the bones into powder.
If it caught you with his jaws, you'd probably have a bad time, but no one was afraid of his little arms … or were they?
A new study presented at a recent meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology looked closely at the functioning of T-Rex's arms and made bold predictions.
The way T-Rex used his weapons and for what purpose has been the subject of lively debate for years.
Some think that the arms do not have much, while others have suggested that the tiny limbs struggle with sharp claws that could have seriously injured their prey or their enemies.
This last cycle of research approaches things from a different angle, seeking to determine the range of motion of the arms as an index of their usefulness.
The researchers studied the members of two distant relatives, the alligator and the turkey, to find clues.
The team concluded that the T-Rex would probably have turned their hand in if they wanted to, and perhaps used their arms to hold their prey in place or bring it closer.
The idea here is that the T-Rex knew that his jaws were his most powerful weapon and that he was therefore using his arms to keep his prey at the perfect bite distance.
Of course, we will never know with certainty that if we can somehow look at a T-Rex or a similar vertical carnivore find its meal, but researchers trust that modern fossils and animals will explain to them how the dinosaur could move his limbs.
This story appeared for the first time in New York Post and is republished with permission.
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