Talk:Tyrannosaurus/Archive 4

Feathered Tyrannosaur Picture


I noticed that a picture of a feathered T. Rex was on the article's "To-Do" list, so I drew one myself. Hope it comes in handy.

K00bine 00:33, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Cute. T.Neo (talk) 10:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Tyrannosaurus rex pop culture
Since I cannot revert your edit without breaking the three-revert rule, I am requesting that you revert your own edit. Tyrannosaurus is a featured article. When it was nominated, a point was made to convert the preexisting list of pop culture trivia to prose and limit its size. A separate article for Tyrannosaurus in popular culture has been created for pop culture trivia like your Eric Garcia reference. Please move it to that page. If you wish to add this author, who I have never even heard of before, to the main T. rex page, please bring it up on the talk page of the article or of WP:DINO, rather than go against a year's worth of consensus, please. I'm sure the idea will be roundly rejected but you are welcome to make the attempt. Thank you. Sheep81 08:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Cranky? Having a bad day?  I'm not attacking a featured article (and, please be aware that even featured articles change over time), just thinking that T-rex's last section reads awkwardly and contains an odd selection of examples.  It looks like a random example or two was selected in several categories.  A list format would focus on the distinct categories in popular culture rather than on the selected examples.  And I thought the movie section carried too much weight in the paragraph, and so added Garcia's work (a modest effort but recently made into a cable film) to expand the written material section.  That same flaw is on the associated popular culture article as well.  Books are seriously ignored, I always think books are more important than movies, anyway. So, you can revert -- you've hardly offended me -- but being defensive of minor changes to this article is hardly the Wiki way.  Best wishes...........WBardwin 08:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not me being defensive, I'm just the only idiot awake. I'm sure if I hadn't reverted it, five or six people would have jumped at the chance a few hours from now if not sooner. Of course articles change, even featured ones. But be aware that there has been a concerted effort to keep trivial pop culture references OUT of that section. If you look, you will notice that your "random example or two" are in fact very notable examples. Eric Garcia, however humorous, is not up there with King Kong or Calvin & Hobbes. Also be aware that the article would not have become featured in the first place had the pop culture section been in list form. Making unilateral changes to an article without an attempt at discussion, even when you have been informed that consensus is against the change is not the Wiki way either.


 * If you feel that books are underrepresented on the pop culture subpage, by all means add as many as you can think of... in THAT article. Sheep81 09:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * PS, if it were up to me, I would delete the entire pop culture section (from this and every other dinosaur article except Dinosaur) and make it a "See Also" at the bottom. I'd lovvvvve to do that! It would make my day! But consensus is against that as well, so I can't. I'm still requesting that you remove the Eric Garcia reference, by the way. It is indeed a minor change. But this type of minor change to that particular section has been vetoed roughly a thousand times. This is why I am adamant about its removal. Sheep81 09:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi WBardin!

I've reverted your edits, too, as we at WP:DINO worked very hard to get Tyrannosaurus up to Featured Article status, and it has been pounded into our heads that articles which use bulleted lists cannot be Featured Articles; all lists have to be converted to prose. We've had this discussion with the FAC reviewers before, and there is just nothing we can do to change their opinions of bulleted lists. As we would naturally want to retain the article's status as representing the best of Wikipedia's articles, we simply cannot use the bullets.

Another thing: I've never heard of the Garcia comic thing, and Sheep's right: it doesn't have the notability that King Kong or even Calvin and Hobbes has; we've used Summary Style here to present the really notable appearances in popular culture, something we had to do for WP:FAC. Please note that Sheep is certainly aware that even Featured Articles change over time; heck, he's made a bunch of changes himself. But the current edits don't tell s anything about Tyrannosaurus. There's a seperate article called Tyrannosaurus in popular culture which is full of fancruft and lists, and you're welcome to add that Garcia thing in there (because we've never worked extensively on paring that article down to the really notable stuff, and it's not a Featured Article).

It's clear you're interested in dinosaurs, and, despite this rough start, I'd like to invite you to join WikiProject Dinosaurs, as we could use someone with your editing abilities, and it's clear you're passionate about the subject. Best wishes and happy editing, Firsfron of Ronchester  09:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Gentlemen (I assume), you are both being defensive and I think unnecessarily so. I'm no newby and I have worked on (gasp) Dinosaurs before, even on the (much earlier) T-rex article. I even created a dinosaur article on a new find in Utah. But your pop section reads like a list because it came from a list and so I formatted it as a list to see what was really in there.  As written, it is not worthy of a featured article.  It needs to be rewritten in a historical context, i.e. the initial popular imagery arising from the representations/models of early finds and how that image has changed (slowly, since about the 1960's if I remember it right).  I have a book by Horner (I think), that talks about the popular image of T-rex, its origins, and errors.  That would be a good start.  Then, I would eliminate all "pop" examples, except those that represent examples of how T-rex's image changed over time, i.e. King Kong vs Jurassic Park.  The list article needs a great deal of work, and is way out of balance, but "popular culture" is one of Wikipedia's biggest weaknesses.  As for Garcia, he came to the top of my head as I was thinking about what else could be added, so he can stay or go.  Sawyer is a much better scifi example.  If you think your "army" of reverters would stand for it, I'll add the section to my to-do list.  Best.......WBardwin 23:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pasting this all over Wikipedia. If you'll actually read the discussion that you just copied and pasted here, you'll see that nobody is defensive about the prose, or that you would dare touch the article. Nobody gives two shits cares if you rewrite the section in its entirety. In fact, we would have thanked you had you done that. But you didn't do that. You converted the pop culture section into a list, then after that was reverted (twice), you added (badly formatted) non-notable fancruft to the section. Both of these are in direct opposition to the established and sensible consensus which has been developed and maintained over the last year by WP:DINO editors and the FAC process. THAT is what we were upset about. If you can make the section coherent while staying within those guidelines, you'll be a modern-day hero. I'll even give you a barnstar. Sheep81 06:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC) (edit: rephrase w/o profanity)
 * This kind of thing really grinds my gears. I agree that the pop culture section should be re-written as an historical discussion. I do not have the time or sources to do this. I agree that converting the section back to the list from whence it came is almost as bad as just deleting it entirely--that is, not an improvement, but a step backwards unless replaced with something better. I also never heard of Garcia and doubt many people have, as opposed to things like JP and King Kong, and that when the new and improved pop culture section is created, mentions of Garcia, or even James Gurney, or even the venerable Transformers Beast Wars, are not notable enough for inclusion. Dinoguy2 14:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Species in taxobox
Ok, I can see where this might be getting overly technical, but I don't think listing species in the taxobox of a genus-level article is appropriate. The article is titled Tyrannosaurus, not Tyrannosaurus rex. In articles for individual species, the taxobox synonyms obviously list synonyms for that species, with the full binomials. However, in the article for Tyrannosaurus, the synonyms should be of that genus, not of T. rex. This issue is more clearly illustrated by genus articles that deal with more than one species, like Diplodocus. That article lists Seismosaurus as a synonym, not S. hallorum, because if it were the latter, it would cause confusion. Which species of Diplodocus is S. hallorum synonymous with? This is not always so obvious, espcially with shifting classifications (it's D. hallorum now, but will probably be D. longus in the near future). I think it's better to keep the synonyms to the genus level, and discuss any issues regarding individal species in the text, as is normally done. If the synonym issues are not discussed in the text, that's not a reason to add species to the taxobox, but a reason to expand the text! Dinoguy2 00:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Tyrannosaurus Size
Will someone please change its size from 13 metres to 12 metres as the largest one ever found was 12.8 metres not as you idiots say "over 13 metres" so your work is vandalism who ever did that.
 * Fixed. Watch the personal attacks. J. Spencer 14:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Eine minuten on the Brochu ref for size; I just checked it after the anonIP edit, and I'm not finding anything about overall size except an offhand comment at the end that "Sue" was 41 feet long. Also, what does "height" refer to in this context? Hip height, height that the head was at, or maximum, knee-shattering, 1950s tripodal Rex stretch? J. Spencer 03:00, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Im quite happy with the lengths in the artical, Scott Hartmans Sue comes out at about 12.5m (very similar to 41 feet) and about 3.5m tall (in runnig pose) to the top of the hip. A hypothetical Sue scaled to be 6% larger (based of the reacent skull) comes out at a little over 13m,(asuming body proportions are maintained) but I don't know of any offical sorces for that sort of size. I've never been happy with theropod hights, there too heavily depended on the posture of the animal. The hight must be coming from Tri-podosaurus Rex. Maybe it should be removed, or replaced with an 'offical' Hip height (if one exists). Steveoc 86 09:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I mean that the reference cited doesn't seem to have the sizes cited in it. I'll look again, though. J. Spencer 13:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see, I have been looking for 13m refs all day and can’t find any. I don’t have the Brochu paper either. I doubt the sizes in the article are based of anything. I was looking thought the article history, its said 'between 12 and 13m’ since before July 2006 but had a different ref ( to a website which only mentioned mass estimates). Its height at the time was stated as 5m. On 21 July  Sheep Changed the ref to the Brochu paper but didn't change the lengths or height. Then on 17th September 2006 anonymous user  74.119.16.252 eventually added ‘4.5 -5m’ tall and since then was never changed. On Hip height,  a paper by H. Philip Powell (2004)  says this ‘The hip height of Tyrannosaurus is calculated at 3·37 m (Thulborn, 1982)’  referring to Speeds and gaits of dinosaurs RA Thulborn - Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 1982 ..   Maybe this could be used instead? Steveoc 86 16:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That might be better for height; Greg Paul has 3.4 for AMNH 5027. I'm wondering if I'm missing a page or something, because professional papers that discuss theropod size use Brochu, 2003, but all I can find is the offhand 41 ft for Sue and the table of individual bone measurements at the end.  If they calculated their measurements from that, cool, but I think they would be more faithful to the original document if they said "calculated from Brochu, 2003". (I don't like full body measurements anyway, as often it's hard to find out what was measured: was it the curve of the spine or a straight line, were cartilage/intervertebral discs accounted for and if so how, does the posture affects the measurement [hell on height measurements], and so on). J. Spencer 16:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

References vs Footnotes
The section Footnotes contains what appear to be most of the references for the article... perhaps it would be best if someone knowledgable on this topic would figure out where the references in the section References should be cited in the text, so that the section References can go and the section Footnotes can be renamed References. Shinobu 17:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting information: A T rex secret weapon is it's fused nasal bones
Read this informaton:

''"The CT scans showed that the fused tyrannosaurid nasals were stronger than unfused nasal bones found in other carnivorous dinosaurs. "When T. rex bit down, the forces from the upper teeth would be channeled right to the [fused] nasal bones," Snively said. The resulting bite would have splintered the bones of unlucky prey.

''For a non-tyrannosaurid but still carnivorous dinosaur with unfused nasal bones connected with stretchy ligaments, some of the bite force would cause the nasal bones to give a little and slide against each other. The flexing would zap some of that dinosaur's bite energy. "

''"Because the nasals [of T. rex] were fused, all of the bite force was transmitted to the food instead of some of the force being distorting the skull," Snively said. "The T. rex especially had a very strong skull and jaw muscles that would turn it into a zoological superweapon."'' —Preceding unsigned comment added by NewDreams2 (talk • contribs) 07:08, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thats a part of an article I found at this link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18746925/

Is msnbc, so I think it is valid information. Could someone check it out and see if it can also be added to the T rex article. It might give great insight to the sophisticated anatomy of the T rex. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NewDreams2 (talk • contribs) 04:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is another web page with the same information. http://www.livescience.com/animals/070518_dino_nose.html

Its an interesting article and hopefully it is seen by everyone. (NewDreams2 04:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC))
 * Huh. Despite the numerous, well-known studies on T. rex bit force and skull mechanics, there doesn't seem to be anything about it in the article. In fact, the relevent papers are in the "References" section a user above noted contains papers not actually used in the article text! There should really be a bite force section under Paleobiology. I don't have the relevent papers, though... maybe somebody who does could throw something together? Dinoguy2 04:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Acta Palaeontologica Polonica has a PDF._Dragon Helm 05:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I think if bite force and skull mechanics are placed in the article, information on teeth of the rex should also be included. Information on the rex's septic bite could also be included, if the sources are found valid. They should all be under one heading: "bite force and skull mechanics". (NewDreams2 08:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC))

Human speed
Can anyone explain this mystery to me? The article says:

"An average professional footballer ('soccer' variety) would be slightly slower. A human sprinter can reach 12 m/s (27 mph).[74]"

The fastest running human is Michael Johnson, the American track and field star who on August 1, 1996 set the world record of running 200 meters in 19.32 seconds. That is 37.3 km/h or 23.3 mph

How can an average human sprinter reach 27 mph when the fastest human ever recorded Michael Johnson was 23.3 mph? 24.166.188.29 06:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe they're comparing apples and oranges? Top speed and average speed can differ. I haven't looked, so my guess may well be wrong. Anyway, I think it would be misleading to compare top speed and average speed. --Kjoonlee 21:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually the fastest professional runner could only reach 15 mph. A Rex would easily outrun a human at top speed.  I have a ton of books on dinosaurs, so I gain info from them.  --Silverstag89 03:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

LMAO. Dude that's way off. The fastest is literally 25.6 mph I believe which was done by Asafa Powell’s 9.77 100 meter time, even though it is estimated that Michael Johnson clocked 9.66 for every 100 meter time in his 200 meter world record. Meaning that Michael Johnson may have actually reached 28mph. I'm a current sprinter right now and I've clocked 18mph at my max without wind. So ur way off sorry dude. Olympics is coming this summer so we'll see what happens then. I hope Maurice Green makes a come back.Mcelite 07:31, 2 December 2007 (UTC)mcelite

Semi-protected
I've been bold and semi-protected this article, as well as Spinosaurus and Giganotosaurus. I'm tired of seeing the already well-sourced size numbers for these animals changing on a daily basis, and I know that first thing in the morning, some IP is going to change the information without changing the reference. I understand that fanboy-types want their favorite to be the largest, meanest, baddest ones, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is ridiculous to add a few feet in length just to make your favorite the largest. Since the disruption is limited almost entirely to IPs, semi-protection should work fine. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

2 fingers or 3?
The jury's out, again: http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_132345.htm Dysmorodrepanis 11:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know, the way I'm reading the abstract, it looksl ike the jury's in, and it's three. Though the third is kinda dinky. Dinoguy2 00:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Can someone decide whether that's disputed? We have a big tag on a featured article here... Circeus 21:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit confused; I don't think it's disputed so much as not really widely reported yet. An image would be great. J. Spencer 23:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Leave things until there's some clarity. One swallow does not make a Summer. I dunno: perhaps the new find represents a different species or even genus?--Gazzster 11:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Peck's rex also preserved a metacarpal 3. Here's a 2005 illustration: . I think there's just never been a complete forelimb of a T. rex found before. In fact, I believe only about 3 T. rex hands have ever been found period: Peck's rex, Sue, and this new one! All previous depictions of rex as 2-fingered were based on comparison to the (also incomplete) hands of Albertosaurus. Hopefully the full paper on digit 3 has an explaination we can use. There's also precedent for this: Compsognathus was thought to have two fingers up until pretty recently (though many people have just assumed the hnd was incomplete, unlike with tyrannosaurids). Dinoguy2 01:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It doesn't look like there was actually a claw or anything from the descriptions that have surfaced, just a slightly bent rod-like thing that probably didn't stick out much in life. J. Spencer 15:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems like this is being blown out of proportion, as most tyrannosaurid hands had 3rd metacarpals, and are known to have had them for years. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (1985), p. 71, the second page of tyrannosaur skeletal illustrations, shows a hand of Tarbosaurus with a 3rd metacarpal. Similarly, if you go to the first Dinosauria (1990, p. 182 in the paperback edition), both Tarbosaurus and Gorgosaurus (then Albertosaurus libratus) have 3rd metacarpals. In the 2nd edition (2004), Daspletosaurus and Albertosaurus proper are also mentioned as having them, and it is assumed that Tyrannosaurus had one as well (p. 124). Finally, and to seal my required killjoy moment of the day, "third digit" may be technically accurate, but it's not a finger in the sense that most people are used to dealing with, and it's not like Tyrannosaurus really had Allosaurus hands; it had two "finger" fingers and an inanimate bony rod per hand. J. Spencer 15:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, a vestigial third finger. Sure, makes sense.--Gazzster 06:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with the article that it was vestigial, though I don't have all the facts. It doesn't sound to me like its vestigial, more like greatly specialized. The article even says that there are strong muscles connected to the metacarpals of the finger. The way the third fingers that developed in T-rex hands seem to show that it was meant for immense strength. And just as the article says, good for grabbing and eating both prey(dead animals that it killed) and carrion(scavenged). People are probably going to have to change their picture of T-rex. NewDreams2 13:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)]

Quote from the article: "Sturdy dorsoulnar and volar muscle attachments are present on the base of the metacarpal." The third fingers are not vestigial,since if they were, there wouldn't be that much strong muscle attachments at their base. It's heavily specialized. In my opinion T-rex sacrificed a bit of flexibility from its digits for grabbing power. Maybe its to better transfer the power from the wrists to the finger. Well just have to stay tuned I guess.NewDreams2 13:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC)]
 * The abstract describes a fused rod being used as an anchor for musculature, and there doesn't seem to be any indication of a claw, or that it stuck out much if at all. I'm not sure that's going to change illustrations much except for having a lump on the outside of the hand. J. Spencer 13:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying it. I'll check the article again.NewDreams2 13:54, 29 October 2007 (UTC)]
 * Isn't this the case for almost all theropod hands, though? Coelophysis has three large, clawed fingers and one vestigial nubbin, but it's still described as four-fingered. If a digit is present, it would still be accurate to describe it as 3-fingered. Heck, I remember reading arguments that the entire forelimb of Carnotaurus may have been embedded within the soft tissue of the body like the hind limbs of some whales, but you wouldn't say it lacked arms, right? Of course, more description in the text would obviously be necessary, since when people say "finger" or "arm" they naturally think of something that had those traditional functions, which the third finger of rex and the arm of Carnotaurus certainly did not. Similarly, the three "fingers" of some maniraptorans seem to have been bound together to some extent within the wing. This has been described for Caudipteryx (where digit 3 is fairly vestigial anyway) and I've seen it suggested but unpublished (except maybe in DoA? Paul does point out that digit 3 universally crosses digit 2 in paravian slab fossils but I can't remember if he argues that they were joined by soft tissue) for a number of dromaeosaurs and early birds. Point is, we should have better descriptuions/explainations of dinosaur hands somewhere, since there does seem to be a generally perception that they were all "allosaur-like". Dinoguy2 06:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

For those wondering what it might look like:
 * Peck's rex metacarpal III
 * Peck's rex hand replicas.
 * "Wyrex" (includes skin impressions)--76.8.194.226 02:45, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting. The MCs looks more robust than in other tyrannosaurids, and MCIII is longer and better developed as well. J. Spencer 03:03, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Those only show MCIII though--the new abstract specifically refers to digit III... Dinoguy2 03:26, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'd say you're looking at it - the abstract says the phalanges are fused to the MC, and you can see it has a blobby tip in the photos, like a small roundish object stuck to the end. J. Spencer 13:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Possible T.rex Footprint
I just watch a report on BBC news. Phil Manning, who was interviewed, said it could possibly be T.rex or Nanotyrannus  Steveoc 86 12:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * "T.rex or Nanotyrannus"
 * Same difference ;) Pretty cool, though. Is there a peer reviewed description out there? Seems to be some uncertainty about its idendity as a footprint floating around on the DML. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dinoguy2 (talk • contribs) 06:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Tooth Length
I have never read of Tyrannosaurus having 12in long teeth. Or is it 6in pretuding from the gums and the other 6in within the gums. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.29.84.183 (talk) 20:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah the largest tooth literally found from the T-Rex Sue was 12 inches long. She has the record so that is the largest that we know of when it comes to teeth size. I personally got to hold her tooth because I met one of the guys that is working on her currently. :) Mcelite (talk) 23:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)mcelite
 * I think a lot less than half the tooth would protrude from the 'gum'--more like a third or even a quarter. Sue's largest tooth would effectively be about 4 inches. Almost all museum mounts have the teeth falling out of the skull--take a look at the taxobox image. The light part would have been within the bone of the skull, with only the darker areas protruding. Dinoguy2 (talk) 04:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Holtz on tyrannosaur speed
I've shortened this part of the article becuase, while Holtz is a major authority, the item cited is old (early 1990s) and is a copy of a posting Holtz made on the Dinosaur Mailiing List - so does not merit more space than a more recent peer-revierwd article. Philcha (talk) 15:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've removed that bit all together. With all due credit to Holtz, after 12 years this type of research would surely have been published if it was valid. Maybe it has been? Anyway, using such an old cite from an unpublished source just seems shady to me. Dinoguy2 (talk) 20:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. Philcha (talk) 14:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

"Locomotion" and "Feeding strategies"
"Feeding strategies" duplicates a lot of the content in "Locomotion". I propose to resolve this by placing "Locomotion" before "Feeding strategies" and merging locomotion-related content from "Feeding strategies" into "Locomotion". Philcha (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that too, sounds like a good solution. Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've placed "Locomotion" before "Feeding strategies" and got most of the material in what I think are the right places. Still to do: improve flow of "Locomotion" and locomotion-related parts of "Feeding strategies"; remove some remaining duplications; find alternatives to some poor-quality references, or remove the offending material. Philcha (talk) 04:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I see some refernces to Dinosaur Cards, published by Orbis. Can't find R. Hajdul (author of set / card referred to in section "Locomotion"). Is this a worthwhile reference? Philcha (talk) 15:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow... I remember an initiative to replace those refs over a year ago. I think by now anything with only a DinoCard ref should be removed, unless I'm not remembering that discussion correctly. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's the relevant discussion--scroll down to the first Object by Samsara, and continues with the unindented Comment by Sheep. Featured article candidates/Tyrannosaurus. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought they were all gone now too. Guaranteed anything that's true can be found in a real primary source; these should all be replaced ASAP. Sheep81 (talk) 06:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Done for now, I'll revisit in about a week to polish the flow. Before anyone objects to the use of bullet lists in the presentation of Horner's arguments for pure scavenging (in "Feeding strategies"): see Embedded_lists, which permits bullet lists where there is a hierarchy of complex sub-topics; Horner's case has 3 quite complex parts, each of which has generated its own debate. Philcha (talk) 00:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I've reinstated the trackway image because it's important to show general readers what a sequence of footprints looks like (Trackway shows only a singleton). If anyone can supply a pic of a sequence of theropod prints in its place, I'd be delighted.
 * These sections could do with other relevant, informative images. Can't think of anything specific I'd like for "Locomotion", but in "Feeding strategies" I'd like to see: Tyrannosaur brain cast / reconstruction with olfactory areas highlighted, beside the relevant part of Horner's case for scavenging; T rex skull making it easy to see the binocular vision, opposite Stevens' research on that subject (there's a beauty in the press release, but it's too large and probably copyright); edmontosaur / ceratopsian bones with healed tyrannosaur bites, opposite the relevant text (replacing the "right foot of T rex" pic, which does not support any part of the text in the entire article). Philcha (talk) 00:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Re - the sauropod trackway image... what is the purpose of this in the article? To illustrate that dinosaur trackways exist? I feel it's a bit disingenuous, s it may imply that tyrannosaur trackways are known. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * See above: Trackway shows only a singleton, but sequences are needed if they're to be any use in analysing dino speed, so a singleton is irrelevant to "Locomotion"; if anyone can supply a pic of a sequence of large theropod prints in its place, I'd be delighted. A sequence of tyrannosaur prints would be ideal, but probably too much to hope for any time soon. Philcha (talk) 01:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile you've removed the "sequence of footprints" image, soon I'll get a "deleted" message for it. So I'm reinstating it, with a caption which admits it's sauropod and just to show what a sequence looks like. And you've reinstated the "right foot" pic without stating what part of the text it supports (none at all as far as I can see). Philcha (talk) 01:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Whoops, didn't notice you'd removed the foot pic. Ok by me. "A sequence of tyrannosaur prints would be ideal," as I mentioned above, no such thing has ever been discovered... there may be one or two isolated tyrannosaur footprints out there, but nothing beyond that. Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I took this picture of a Tyrannosaurus footprint at Philmont. They say that it is the only confirmed known footprint actually from a Tyrannosaurus. Would it work in the article? Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 21:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice pic. But the reason I was hoping for a line of them was so I could say in the caption e.g. "Paleontologists can estimate speed from stride length". From that point of view a line of any theropod footprints as more useful than a single Tyrannosaurus print. Thanks anyway. Philcha (talk) 21:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Had a go at the two sections; for Locomotion, I didn't do much beyond formatting, except for reworking the compy size mention. I personally think it would be find to just say a 3 kg specimen was used, and that pointing it out as a juvenile is unnecessary (Greg Paul estimated the larger specimen at 2.5 kg back in 1988, anyway). For Feeding strategies, the major changes I made to the text were: I de-emphasize the "Horner peer-reviewed versus media" material, as I thought that could tend to bias the reader a-priori without even getting to what he had actually proposed; I condensed a section of text on the speed of the animal because it was about the same as the last paragraph of the preceding section; and I tweaked the edmontosaur paragraph because the damage was to bone, and using scarring might make people think that skin impressions were found. J. Spencer (talk) 02:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think these sections look really great now. I've thought they were a mess for awhile now but never got around to cleaning them up like I was able to with a couple other sections. Awesome job gentlemen! Sheep81 (talk) 06:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've: placed the 2 posture images together, to facilitate comparison and avoid squeezing the first few lines of text in "Posture"; made minor changes to wording in "Locomotion" (e.g. there were inconsistencies in comparisons with human sprinters); replaced 2 not very relevant images in "Feeding" with one that supports the binocular vision para.
 * I think the most desirable improvements now would be: image of tyrannosaur brain highlighting olfactory lobes (and optic if possible) in "Feeding"; image of healed tyrannosaur bites on bones of edmontosaur / ceratopsian, in "Feeding"; replace refs to DinoCards in "Locomotion" and "Feeding". Philcha (talk) 10:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science a few years ago, where the bitten edmontosaur is exhibited, so I'll check to see if I have any photos. J. Spencer (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Medullary tissue in bones
I think this is under-used in the article at present. The correlation with the physical / sexual maturity and the end of the growth spurt may be its least significant aspect, since the sample size is only 1 and it's an argument from absence of evidence (a discovery of medullary bone in a younger specimen would break the correlation). I think it's more significant as another dino-bird link with tyrannosaurs placed well inside the coelurosaurs (I realise I've just collapsed several articles and reams of cladograms into a few words!) and as an aid to sexing tyrannosaurs (may help resolve the dimorphism issue) - see Geologists Find First Clue to T. rex Gender in Bone Tissue. Given the range of implications, I suggest medullary tissue should have its own section, which should be fairly early in "Paleobiology" and at least precede "Growth". Philcha (talk) 11:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If you think it would be a good idea, I'm willing to see how a separate section would look. J. Spencer (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Go for it. Philcha (talk) 11:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

"Description" section
I suggest this is next in line for a makeover:
 * Too may short sentences which fail to highlight the relationships between the points they make.
 * Mention other mega-theropods in 1st para. Also mention that the others look more primitive (e.g. allosaurs on steroids).
 * 2 diagrams illustrating tyrannosaur size. One should be enough - I'm thinking of adapting the one which includes other theropods so that it highlights the tyrannosaur and the human (make tyrannosaur darker, other theropods paler), and possibly removing Therizinosaurus because it's not a carnivore and has competely different build - we know it's a theropod but the general reader will find it confusing.
 * The current last para "The neck of T. rex formed a natural S-shaped curve ...") should probably come next as it's simple and gives a general description of the animal's build. Also needs refs.
 * The para about skull and teeth should be split, skull coming first. There's enough to say about both.
 * The part about skull should contrast with other theropods (images would be good).
 * The part about teeth is over-simplified - wide variation in size, proportions and serrations; "lethal bananas" . Should also mention U-shaped jaw (all the better to bite you with), another tyrannosauroid special feature. Philcha (talk) 11:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's my first draft of the size comparison image. Still to do: remove Therizinosaurus; modify presentation of Spinosaurus to distinguish between torso and sail. What do you think?

Slightly off-topic, is there any way to implement image maps in Wikipedia, so we could make the colour coding guide link to articles? And can we get round the problem that (AFAIK) in standard HTML image maps the specification of the linking areas ("hot spots") depends on the scale of the image? Philcha (talk) 12:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of blacking out Tyrannosaurus to highlight it. As to description in general: I did a very detailed section for Allosaurus, but Allo is different in that there's not much of a Family Allosauridae that could host other information (it's just Allosaurus and its best friend).  I think Tyrannosaurus should have a similarly detailed section *if* it is not redundant with information that would be better served in Tyrannosauridae as general tyrannosaur characteristics. J. Spencer (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Re the image, what about removing Therizinosaurus and modifying the presentation of Spinosaurus to distinguish between torso and sail?
 * Re the balance between Tyrannosaurus and Tyrannosauridae, I suggest writing it in Tyrannosaurus then looking at re-factoring later - as you said elsewhere, you've often found that works best. Otherwise we could wind up pushing some of the content all the way back to Guanlong (D cross-section front teeth) or Dilong (U-shaped jaw) or some other early predecessor (e.g. very robust skull). The comparison with other mega-carnivores is specific to Tyrannosaurus as it was about twice the size of its closest relatives. I think I read recently that T rex was more heterodont than its closest relatives - if so, that's also specific. For other common points, Tyrannosaurus would still need at least a brief outline (there's a style guideline whose name I forget), and by the time we add "see also ..." we may find it takes no more space to do it all inline. Philcha (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Re-the image, what purpose would separating out the sail serve? It's just the vertebrae, to be fair, if we did this, we'd need to separate out the neural spines on all the species. kind of an arbitrary decision, but should be easy enough to do if you really want it. I'll put together a non-therizinosaur version tonight, with rexy in black. Other suggestions sound good. As far as I know, there's no way to image map pics on Wikipedia, unfortunately. Best we can do is link the other species in the caption and/or image description. As for the two size diagrams, I think both are useful--one shows size variation within T. rex, the other shows T. rex relative to other giant theropods. I actually think the first is more important--this is an article about T. rex, not theropod size (can you tell I'm a fan of segragating info and keeping articles as on-topic as possible? ;) Dinoguy2 (talk) 23:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, while I'm making this, any preferences regarding which species go into the chart? Just the big three (or four, or five?) Dinoguy2 (talk) 23:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If you're volunteering to finish the "mega-therapods compared" pic, that's fine. The point of distinguishing between torso and sail in Spinosaurus is to make the pic compare like with like, otherwise I think the pic makes its point less precisely in this context. I know that's a fiddly job and I'm prepared to have a go if you put together the other contents of the pic (see next item).
 * Re which dinos in the pic, I suggest Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus, Carcharadontosaurus, Gigantonotosaurus and Allosaurus if possible - that makes the point that Tyrannosaurus was much larger than the largest known Jurassic carnivore but slightly smaller than the largest Cretaceous ones.
 * Re the other pic, I hadn't realised it was a set of Tyrannosaurus specimens - blame my lousy eyesight. I have 2 concerns about including both pics. Readers may get confused like I did. And I'm not sure what point it would help to make (you may have noticed I like images to support points in the text). For example were all specimens fully adult, especially "little Jane"? Including non-adult specimens would make only the trivial point that sub-adult animals are smaller. If e.g. "Stan" and AMNH 5027 are fully adult males, a comparison of T rex specimens might best be placed in "Dimorphism", but including only full adults.
 * I suspect you think I'm being too fussy about images all round. But yesterday I inserted a full-face image beside the para about binocular vision and someone's already posted a message "that's really cool" - to me that justifies the effort I made to use the right pic for that section. Philcha (talk) 10:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Re image maps, I've thought how I'd get round the difficulty in HTML in an ordinary Web page: a DIV with the image, the legend as a contained block with, the colour codes as    and the names as links (the color code would display as e.g.   ). Too complex to spend time on now, but an option to keep in the toolkit in case we find a situation where we really need it. Philcha (talk) 11:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Back to the text of "Description" - I'd be happy to have a go at revising it as discussed above. I'd keep both "size" images until that issue is agreed. We can consider re-factoring when we see how it looks. Everybody happy with that? Philcha (talk) 11:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll throw in Allosaurus (or should I use 'Epanterias'?) and upload it shortly. As for the tyrannosaur size comparison, my main concern is that in all these size comparisons, we've been using the largest known specimens. The "Sue" specimen is enormous, larger than the average size of T. rex (there's a pretty good sample size at this point). Maybe if I redid that image, removed the juvenile, and included some of the smaller adult specimens? This may not be discussed in the text, but if there's a good source it probably should be mentioned in the size section ("most Tyrannosaurus specimens do not attain the size found in Sue" etc...). Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Here it is: [[Image:Largecarnivorousdinosaurs2.png|thumb|200px]]
 * Nice one! I may have a go at differentiating spino's sail, but please link this one into the article. Philcha (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In general I get the point about "the largest known specimens". Was T rex more variable than other big carnivores? Have we enough data to tell whether was T rex more / less variable in adult size than other big carnivores (and allowing for possible dimorphism)? I don't want to create unnecessary work for you, so perhaps we should work out what point we want the "T rex' size range" pic to make first. Philcha (talk) 16:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually you can make image maps, with a bit of coding. Info here. Sheep81 (talk) 08:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)


 * All right, took me 20 minutes but I think I finished. Check it out to the right. Hope your minds are ready to be blown... try not to all bow down to me at once! Sheep81 (talk) 08:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, well seems we already have an image map on our hadrosaur article. Guess it's not as special as I thought, haha! Damn ornithischians... Sheep81 (talk) 08:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * But still very nice. The question is whether we want to risk being pestered by a horde of other projects about how to implement it. If that's not a concern, I think the next question is how large should the map-containing image be in the actual article _ think it would be easier to use at 2x the size (=4x the area, to avoid ambiguity). If we agree on a size, I suggest implementing it for real.Philcha (talk) 09:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't mind if other Projects ask, it's super easy. The cool thing is that the size doesn't matter as far as the mapping goes. The coordinates are mapped onto the full-sized image and you can set the display size in the first line, and it will automatically scale the coordinates to match. Sheep81 (talk) 10:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Move "Classification" after "Paleobiology"?
The details of classification are important to scientists but will make the general reader's eyes glaze over - they sometimes affect me that way! Philcha (talk) 11:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Teenage growth spurt
Does anyone know of any good explanations of why Tyrannosaurus’ was so much more explosive than that of its close relatives? Philcha (talk) 12:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Aside from selection pressures within tyrannosaurids to get bigger faster? J. Spencer (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * When I first saw the growth curve for T rex (alone), I thought: (a) intra-specific sexual / territorial / feeding competition among them might be so fierce that survival rates for intermediate-sized T rex adolescents might be low, and this would create selection pressure for a long period at small size followed by an explosive adolescent growth spurt; (b) since latest Cretaceous dino faunas show a trend to gigantism, intermediate-sized T rex adolescents would be in an awkward position between the "small game" and "big game" food chains. What puzzles me now is that T rex has a much more explosive growth spurt than its close relatives Daspletosaurus (about 8M years earlier) and slightly less close relatives Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus (also about 8M years earlier) - and that T rex was smaller than Daspletosaurus up to about age 12! Was there more of a gap between the "small game" and "big game" food chains in the latest Cretaceous than 8M years earlier? Or is there any reason to think T rex showed higher levels of intra-specific aggression? Or has anyone come up with some other explanation? And are there any good refs for discussions of this issue? Philcha (talk) 15:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Nobody has really published on this aside from Erickson and company. Also I would take the pre-spurt section of the graph with a grain of salt, very few remains of young tyrannosaurs are known, so that is mostly statistical extrapolation. As far as T. rex growing more quickly, it's probably just their typical hyperperamorphosis. Teenage T. rex look a lot like fully adult tyrannosaurids of other species... and nobody looks as "grown up" as an adult T. rex. Sheep81 (talk) 17:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * "typical hyperperamorphosis" - what's typical about that in T rex (seriously)? And why hadn't it fully played out earlier, in the basal tyrannosauroids? Adaptive radiation in sauropod dinosaurs: bone histology indicates rapid evolution of giant body size through acceleration (2003) says Late Triassic sauropods grew faster than prosauropods and as a result reached much larger adult sizes from similar hatchling sizes. The paper also suggests that this accelerated growth must have required "considerable increase in metabolic rate .... bird-like lung ..." (relevant to another topic I've been thinking about.) Philcha (talk) 23:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Tyrannosaur Life Tables: An Example of Nonavian Dinosaur Population Biology may support the intra-specific competition explanation. If so, it leaves open / accentuates the puzzle about why the teenage growth spurt was less extreme in earlier carnivores. (My best guess right now is that dinos of very different sizes laid eggs of more similar sizes, so smaller theropods had less scope for an extreme growth spurt.) Philcha (talk) 14:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

T rex speed / acceleration
(Found this posting in the "To do" list at top of page, moved it here so people can discuss.)

I'm not an expert, but it appears that Tyrannosaurus could run 'pretty' fast, but was a slow turner. This would imply that he hunted similarly to a pike, or a crocodile, or maybe a heron: hide or sit very silently and wait until something passes by. If his prey consisted of sauropods and hadrosaurs, living near coasts and rivers, t-rex could easily have been hiding in water, just like a crododile does. Looking much like a trunk. This seems a *very* good theory to me but I can't find anything about this on the web...Drgeert 08:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting point. Paul ("Predatory Dinosaurs of the World", 1988) says T rex had really big crests on the knee and heel, giving muscles excellent leverage. IMO this says little about top speed but suggests exceptional acceleration from a stationary start, which is a feature of the pike Drgeert mentioned (pike accelerates too fast for field zoologists' slow-motion cameras to resolve the blur). Might be worth a mention in the article if we could find a ref to T rex acceleration. Philcha (talk) 12:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What is now the type specimen of T rex?
"Manospondylus controversy" has an image whose caption says " ... type specimen ... inaccurately reconstructed ... now disassembled." So what is now the the type specimen of T rex? Should we revise "Classification" to identify the current type specimen (preferably with image)? Philcha (talk) 15:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's still it, as far as I know. Disassembled doesn't mean destroyed, they just took apart the museum display reconstruction (back in the day, real fossils were used in museum mounts. Barbarians!) Dinoguy2 (talk) 18:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Most of our featured dinosaur articles have the type specimen identified by number in the history section... which in this article is really in need of a cleanup. I'll try to touch it up today or tomorrow if that's okay. Sheep81 (talk) 20:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The story of THE BITE?
I've thought for a few years that the main theme of tyrannosauroid evolution was the increasingly powerful bite, starting possibly as early as Guanlong (and late tyrannosaurids upgraded their binocular vision - anticipating by 65M years that ad with Carl Lewis on the blocks in high heels). Some papers have come my way which support this notion (the bite, not Carl Lewis), when I finish the current edit of "Description" I'll get round to reading them. Would it be in order to include it in this article (or perhaps Tyrannosauroidea), provided I can avoid OR? Philcha (talk) 19:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds like it might be tricky to avoid OR (OR includes drawing even obvious conclusions from papers that the authors didn't explicitly arrive at). But give it a shot anyway, it's an interesting subject. Dinoguy2 (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Possessive apostrophe?
This has bothered me for a while and I can't find a yes or no answer in any style guides. Use of possessive apostrophe on scientific names? For example, is "Tyrannosaurus' mass" correct, or should we use "the mass of Tyrannosaurus"? Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The way I was taught English (in Scotland, decades ago), the apostrophe is correct; and I preferred it as being more concide and imposing less cognitive load (stack processing) on the reader. But I'm aware that even grammar changes over both time and geography (I've spent time in the USA). I think the criterion should be whichever approach works best for the majority of general readers. Philcha (talk) 18:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll keep poking around, I'd feel better if I could find it in a guide, but I agree the use of the apostrophe is much easier on both reader and writer. I've been under the impression it's incorrect for some reason, but it would save a lot of trouble if it's ok! Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)