Was the Tyrannosaurus Rex a picky eater?

Was the Tyrannosaurus Rex a foodie?

The dinosaur, frozen in the popular imagination as a ruthless predator that gnawed at any unfortunate creature that crossed its path, actually had a jaw bristling with nerve endings that made it a smarter eater than previously thought, according to Japanese paleontologists who published their findings. in historical biology on Monday.

While it may not have been a truly demanding foodie, the T. Rex had a sophisticated mandible comparable to the jaws of modern crocodiles and tactile foraging birds, such as ducks, according to scientists at the Research Institute. on the dinosaurs of Fukui Prefecture. University, which conducted the study.

In other words, T. Rex most likely did not eat blind, according to the study. He had keen senses that would have allowed him to recognize different parts of his prey and chew them differently depending on what he was munching on.

“The tyrannosaur’s jaws were powerful enough to crush bones,” Soichiro Kawabe, one of the study’s authors and paleontologist at institute, said in an e-mail. “However, in situations where food was plentiful, they may have used their sensitive snouts to selectively eat the most nutritious parts of their prey. The tyrannosaur’s diet may not have been as crass as we imagine. .

The study did not say how discriminating T. Rex was or whether it could recognize the difference between bones and flesh.

“These speculations are quite imaginary and fall outside of what we can scientifically derive from the results of our research,” said Dr Kawabe.

The significance of the study is that it reveals the complex development of nerves in the tyrannosaur’s mandible, he said.

“Based on the morphology of the Tyrannosaurus mandibular nerve, we were able to clarify that the Tyrannosaurus jaw tip was most likely a fairly good sensor,” Dr Kawabe said.

Dr Kawabe and another scientist, Soki Hattori, an assistant professor at the institute, used computed tomography, or computed tomography, to analyze and reconstruct the structure of the jaw canal through which nerves and blood vessels would have passed. They studied the fossil of a T. Rex found in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana.

The fossil was well preserved, allowing researchers to study the structure of the canal, he said.

The sensitive jaw tips also give clues to how the Tyrannosaurus may have parented.

Crocodiles have a sensitive muzzle, which helps them spot their prey in water, but also gives them such a fine sense of touch that they can carry their young in their mouths without crushing them with their powerful jaws.

“The tyrannosaurus may have done the same,” Dr. Kawabe said.

The study highlights “the sensitive side of T. Rex,” said Jack Tseng, a paleontologist at the University of California at Berkeley, who read the report.

“We were really obsessed with the strengths the T. Rex could have rather than how thin it was,” he said. “It gives us an idea of ​​its finesse. “

The report gives “another dimension” to a creature that has obsessed the general public but is rarely seen as anything other than a monster, said Dr Tseng, who analyzed the bite of a teenage Tyrannosaurus.

“They weren’t fools munching on whatever they saw move,” he said.

Still, Dr Tseng said the study results underscore the need for more fossil evidence to show how the dinosaur’s sensitive mandible was used. Analyzing coprolites, or fossilized feces, “could be another way to understand how sensitive their palate was,” he said.

The report’s authors acknowledged that their conclusions are limited: they did not analyze the entire dinosaur mandible area or use other dinosaur fossils for comparison.

“Ideally, this study can be continued with a variety of additional types of dinosaurs, to see if the tyrannosaurus was really exceptional, or just an ordinary carnivorous dinosaur,” said Thomas R. Holtz, a paleontologist at the university. from Maryland who read the study. “But even this smaller-scale study helps us better understand dinosaurs as living, sentient animals.”