New Study Says T-rex’s Small Arm Lowers Risk of Biting While Hunting

KOMPAS.com – Arm Tyrannosaurus rex or T-rex is still a puzzle for many scientists. This is because its size is too small, when compared to its body size.

Various hypotheses about the usefulness of the arm also emerged. Like for example as a cruel slashing machine or helping to grasp when they mate.

And now another hypothesis about function T-rex little arm that.

Also read: Recent Study Claims T-rex Consists of Three Different Species

Citing Science Alert, Monday (4/4/2022), the researcher said that dinosaur it evolved to have short arms to lower the risk of an accidental bite by another T-rex while engaged in a feeding frenzy.

The T-rex itself has a large skull with very strong jaws and teeth. When fighting for prey, it is likely that they will be close to each other, could there be the potential to be bitten from another T-rex not because of that competition?

“They may be warning by severing another T-rex arm,” said Kevin Padian, an integrative biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Paleontologists are getting better at understanding what dinosaurs were like thanks to the discovery of skin and feather fossils. This allows them to provide even more information about dinosaur habits.

But of course, that doesn’t answer complex evolutionary questions like the T-rex arm.

T-rex arms compared to their body size look very small. Just imagine a T-rex with a length of 14 meters, a 1.5 meter long skull only has an arm length of 1 meter.

When compared this is equivalent to a human being 1.8 meters tall but his arms only measure 12 centimeters.

In this study, researchers measured a mostly complete fossil specimen, called MOR 555.

Researchers also used the basis of recent research on T-rex which showed that the dinosaurs hunted in groups and were not solitary apex predators.

Also read: Can’t Chew, What Does T. rex Eat?

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