Latest:

06:02 President's South Park cameo pulled
05:52 Shuttle docks with space station
05:42 Palin grandson's father in Playgirl
05:22 Honda expands recall over airbags
04:42 Portsmouth seek court adjournment
04:02 McCanns back in court over book ban
03:02 Troops poised for Taliban offensive
02:42 Haiti earthquake death toll rises

Scars show teen T.rex was up for savage scraps

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Bookmark & Share

The terrible teens were truly terrifying when Tyrannosaurus rex was alive, research has shown.

Just like teenagers today, young tyrannosaurs got into scraps — and the encounters could be savage and bloody, scientists have discovered.

Researchers found scars of peer-group conflict on Jane, a young T.rex whose skeleton is the prize exhibit at an Illinois museum. Scientists do not know if Jane, named after a donor to the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, was male or female. But what is clear is it was no shrinking violet.

She (or he) has a broken nose and signs of healed bites left by seriously unplayful fighting.

Examination of Jane's bones, unearthed in 2001 in Montana showed the wounds were almost certainly inflicted by another T.rex of about the same age.

Researcher Joe Peterson, from Northern Illinois University, said: “The study of the bite marks on Jane's face demonstrates that even at a young age this dinosaur was engaging in some pretty serious combat.”