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T-Rex - Merciless Killer
Or Garbage Disposal Unit?
By Jeremy Lovell
8-1-3
| LONDON (Reuters) - For a century,
the towering Tyrannosaurus Rex has been regarded as a savage killer marauding
unchallenged across the later dinosaur era. But a new exhibition at London's Natural History Museum asks whether the monster meat-eater was instead a lumbering bully which lived on rotting corpses or used its bulk to rob smaller dinosaurs of their prey. "I believe it was a scavenger pure and simple because I can't find any evidence to support the theory that it was a predator," paleontologist Jack Horner said at the opening on Thursday of "T-Rex -- the killer question." Horner, the inspiration for scientist Alan Grant -- played by Sam Neill -- in Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park," said the lumbering giant was too slow, its arms too small and its sight too poor to catch anything moving. On the other hand -- like a vulture -- the part of its brain dedicated to smell was huge and its giant jaws were bone crushers not flesh cutters. "Everything says this dinosaur lived on dead meat. Even statistically we find that plant-eating dinosaurs were far more common than predators, and T-Rex is the second most common dinosaur," said Horner from Montana's Museum of the Rockies. Although Natural History Museum paleontologist Angela Milner agreed that T-Rex was not built to run far or fast, she said there was nothing to suggest it could not catch and kill slow moving prey -- although falling over might be a problem. "Research in the United States suggests that falling over while running might have been fatal because of its bulk. But I think it was partly a scavenger and partly a hunter. I believe it could have killed old or weak animals," she said. Visitors to the exhibition which includes life-sized animated models of the 16-foot tall, six-ton brute attacking and eating its four-legged meals will get the chance to make up their own minds over the next nine months. But a show of hands by the group of children at the opening on Thursday already suggested the likely answer -- almost all said T-Rex was probably a combination predator-scavenger. "The answer is that we will probably never be certain, but as long as we keep asking the questions we are serving science," said an unfazed Horner. Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. |
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