Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Vulture

Tyrannosaurus Rex
We tend to view Tyrannosaurus rex as a 20-foot tall flesh eater who ran down its prey. Some have called this dinosaur “the most efficient carnivore who ever lived.” Science fiction movies like Jurassic Park have probably been the main source of this image, but the fact is that T. rex was nowhere near that fast.

Past studies of T. rex suggested that its huge mass–in the vicinity of nine tons–prevented it from running down much of anything. The muscle strength needed to accelerate that mass is simply not available to any form of life. Now simulations of acceleration and bone strength have verified that understanding. A speed of about 12 mph would have been the top limit for T. Rex and for only a short distance. That means a human could easily outrun a T. rex.

Tyrannosaurus rex was probably more of a scavenger than a hunter. There were other slow-moving dinosaurs such as Edmontosaurus, Triceratops, and Ankylosaurus that T. rex might have been able to catch. It is more likely that the T. rex population were the vultures of their day, not the lions of their day.

God created dinosaurs for a purpose, and every year we understand more about how they helped sustain the ecosystem that produced many of the resources we need. Every little boy seems to be fascinated with the media presentations of these creatures, but they really were not that glamorous.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

Watch Out for Zuul!

Zuul the Dinosaur
Zuul the Dinosaur

Has Zuul the monster been discovered? People misinterpret coincidences so quickly that it’s sometimes frightening. Victoria Arbour, who works for the Royal Ontario Museum, published her study of the most complete skeleton of an ankylosaurus dinosaur found in North America in the May 7 issue of the Royal Society Open Science Journal. The dinosaur looks very much like a monster named Zuul portrayed in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters.

The dinosaur had large horns on its head and smaller spikes on its face. It had a long, spiked tail with a massive knob of bone on the end. The full scientific name of Arbour’s find is Zuul crurivastator which means “Zuul, Destroyer of Shins.” Scientists gave it the name Zuul because of the similarities to the Movie monster. The “Destroyer of Shins” is because of its tail.

What is interesting is that we have already received a phone call in which the person calling said that we were in error saying that dinosaurs don’t live today. The reason was that Zuul had just been found in northern Montana and the filmmakers must have seen this animal. (The fact that the fossil was originally discovered in 2014 didn’t seem to make any difference to the caller.)

We would suggest that the similarity is a coincidence. If the people who made the movie Ghostbusters claim they based the creature on something they saw, we would like to ask where they saw it. They haven’t made that claim, and we are pretty sure they won’t. Demand evidence for all claims and make it especially strong when the claim is extraordinary.
–John N. Clayton © 2017