T. rex leaves tooth in would-be lunch’s tail, paleontologists find it

T. rex hunting—not scavenging—at a Pennsylvania theme park.

Lehigh Valley, PA

Good news for fans of Tyrannosaurus rex (and I suspect that all living humans are fans)—the lizard king can keep its tyrant crown. Classic T. rex enthusiasts have had some rough times lately, with some researchers suggesting that the iconic carnivore may need to be redrawn in fluffier, feathery garb, and others proposing that T. rex wasn’t a hunter at all.

Proponents of this latter view (including the well-known paleontologist Jack Horner) thought that tyrannosaurs were ill-suited to hunting and likely scavenged for carrion instead, partly because of the species' bulky size. The image of T. rex skulking around to sneak bites of carcasses didn’t sit well with some.

There has been considerable debate among paleontologists about this point, which isn’t easy to settle. While fossil finds commonly shed light on what various dinosaurs ate, understanding how they got their claws on those meals is a much tougher puzzle. Tooth marks in bones can sometimes be matched to a carnivore, but they leave an open question: did that gnawing take place at the end of a successful hunt (from the hunter’s point of view), or was the gnawing recipient already dead?