Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex is arguably the most famous dinosaur of them all. Tyrannosaurus was the last and largest of the Tyrannosaurs. Commonly known as "T. rex", this species lived during the Late Cretaceous Period in modern day North America and was therefore among one of the last non-avian dinosaurs. In popular culture, Tyrannosaurus has an iconic status shared by few other species.

Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus had very short arms with only two fingers. Despite the limbs' size, each were able to bench-press about 400 pounds. Although these were probably nearly useless while hunting, its jaws were not: Tyrannosaurus has an enormous skull armed with teeth the size of bananas. Unlike the teeth of most theropods, the teeth of tyrannosaurids are very thick and capable of crushing bones and with a bite force of a minimum 4 tons of force and probably more, crushing bone, ripping flesh, and bursting blood vessels of the victim.  The skull and neck bones show that T. rex had the largest neck muscles of any meat-eating dinosaur. It probably used its strong neck to twist and pull off big chunks of meat that it grasped with its jaws while supporting the huge head. Tyrannosaurus could bite with extremely strong force - one fossilized skeleton shows that it crushed and swallowed the bones of a smaller plant-eating dinosaur while another shows a Tyrannosaurus coprolite with the crushed frill of a Triceratops.

Appears in

Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom