Although a Tyrannosaurus rex could bite hard enough to shatter the bones of its prey, paleontologists were baffled by how it accomplished this feat without breaking its own skull. Until now, that is. A new study via scientists at the University of Missouri, led by Albright College biology faculty member, Ian Cost, Ph.D., shows that the T. rex’s skull was much stiffer than the snakes and birds to which it was previously compared.
The bone-shattering bite of a Tyrannosaurus rex delivered up to six tons of pressure — enough to have crushed a car.
Cost, who worked on the project as a doctoral student in the University of Missouri School of Medicine, believes the findings could help to advance human and animal medicine by providing better models of how joints and ligaments interact.
“The results presented in this study, which has been carried out with tremendous attention to detail, not only demonstrate that the skull of T. rex could resist very high bite forces, but precisely how it did so,” says Laura Porro, an expert on fossil biomechanics at University College London. Porro adds that the work will now help researchers determine the flexibility of skulls belonging to other fossil animals.
> Read full story in National Geographic
> Read full study in The Anatomical Record
> Watch YouTube video explaining research
