Tyrannosaurs had teenage growth spurt
Helen Pilcher

Bone analysis sheds light on dinosaur development.

Tyrannosaurus rex lived fast and died young, research reveals. Examination
of fossil ribs has slashed 70 years off the age of Sue, the best-preserved
specimen of this enormous Cretaceous carnivore.

It seems that T. rex must have been able to really pile on the pounds. It
gained up to two kilograms a day, as much as a modern-day African elephant
does, report Gregory Erickson from Florida State University, Tallahassee,
and his colleagues in this week's Nature1.

The dinosaur, which roamed the earth some 65 million years ago, was one of
the largest terrestrial carnivores ever to live. Adults typically weighed in
at around 5,000 kilograms, making them at least 15 times larger than today's
largest land-based meat-eater, the polar bear.

This caused palaeontologists to puzzle over how they got so big. Some
experts believed they grew slowly throughout their lives, like modern-day
reptiles. Others thought they had an initial growth spurt that later
subsided, like that in birds and mammals.

Read the rest at Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040809/full/040809-7.html

Comment:
For those thinking about a pet T. rex, yes, you can feed them on the dog's
food, but they will insist on the dog for afters.

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
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