RE: PALEONEWS: T. Rex Skeleton Found in S.D.

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Martin Barnett
>
> Malcolm Ritter masquerading as Betty Cunningham and quoting
> Bakker wrote ;)
> >  But ``the jaws are 100 percent adult,'' armed with ``massive
> > bone-crushing teeth.'' That suggests it ate an adult diet, even though
> > it didn't appear strong enough to wrestle  large prey to the ground, he
> > said. So apparently Mom or Dad hunted the meals, and Junior showed up
> > later to munch, he said.
> >
> >  Holtz said that's a possibility, but not the only one.
>
> So what are the other possibilities - diet of smaller animals?  I use the
> term "smaller" quite liberally, after all this animal's just a bit bigger
> than Ceratosaurus

Precisely what I was suggesting to Ritter: a second possibility is that a
young _T. rex_ hunted on its own (or a third possibility: in a pack of
youngesters) and killed "smaller" dinosaurs: younger ornithischians,
ornithomimosaurs, etc.  The problem with these possibilities is that they
are extraordinarily difficult to test!

> - How gangly is it that it can't hunt for it's
> own meals?

One man's "gangly" is another man's "gracile"... :-)

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-314-7843