Tyrannosaur Behavior

Tyrannosaur behavior and other dinosaur behavior use to be unknown and is just now being and getting realized. '''

Hunting'''

Tyrannosaurs were probably social hunters, since a lot of Albertosaurus skeletons have been found in giant bonebeds.

Tyrannosaurs relied on its huge jaws, sharp teeth and powerful, clawed legs during attacks. Its tiny, two-fingered arms were virtually useless.

Some paleontologists have theorized that Tyrannosaurs may taken one huge, terrible bite from its victim and then waited until that animal bled to death. Then Tyrannosaurids could return to eat.

Triceratops, the three-horned plant-eater was among T. rex's prey. This is known because crushed Triceratops frill bone was found in fossilized T. rex dung. T. rex was a meat-eater and was at the top of the food chain in its environment. It probably chased its prey and took huge bites of their flesh, mortally wounded the prey, then devoured it. Its huge jaws and powerful, clawed legs were its lethal weapons. T. rex's tiny arms may not have played much of a part in the kill.

Scavenger or Hunter?

Some paleontologists (notably Jack Horner) have recently begun to question whether T. rex could have been an effective hunter, given its small eyes, puny arms, and relatively slow gait (Note: many other paleontologists think that T. rex had good eyesight and was a relatively fast dinosaur.) Horner's alternative theory is that T. rex scavenged its food from other animals' kills.

Scavengers need a good sense of smell (to find meat) and means of long-distance locomotion (to get to the meat). There is evidence that T.rex had an acute sense of smell (deduced from room in its skull for large olfactory lobes in its brain). Also, T. rex's large legs would provide ample means of long-distance locomotion.

There are arguments against this scavenger hypothesis. Recently, Dr. Kenneth Carpenter (from the Denver Museum of Natural History) found a healed T. rex tooth mark on the tail of a hadrosaur (a duck-billed dinosaur). This is evidence that T. rex was an active predator, and not simply a scavenger. Why else would T. rex bite a duck-billed dinosaur?

Other arguments against the scavenger hypothesis are that small eyes do not necessarily imply poor vision. Birds (dinosaurs' descendants) have relatively small eyes but acute vision. As for T. rex's puny arms, arms are not necessary for predation; many predators have no arms at all, like sharks and snakes. As for T. rex's gait (speed), there were many animals that were slower than T. rex; these would become its prey, not the speedier types.

Species Combat

There is evidence that T. rex and other tyrannosaurs may have fought one another! Sue (the auctioned T. rex skeleton that was found in South Dakota, USA in 1990) had evidence of healed facial wounds that were probably bites from another T. rex.