20040815

T. rex bones sitting in museum drawers, and found the bones contain a treasure trove of well preserved growth rings inside. Research by Gregory Erickson, a palaeontologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee has revealed Tyrannosaurus rex reached its colossal proportions due to a monster growth spurt in its teenage years. Erickson and his colleagues chart out the first growth curve for T. rex. From it they concluded that T. rex became a giant only in its teenage years, undergoing an exponential growth spurt for around four years during adolescence. T. rex achieved its gigantic size not by growing for longer, as do modern mammals and lizards, but by growing dramatically faster. An adolescent T. rex would have gained about 2 kilogrammes a day between the ages of 14 and 18, before slowing down and settling into adulthood.

• < Prev
• Next >