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Re: Thick Tyrannosaur Bones



 
"Tyrannosaurs have very, very dense bones — so the chances of preserving are better," said [Phil] Currie.

Thicker than the bones of herbivores?  I'm surprised.

It says in PDW that predators have denser (not thicker) bones that also fossilize better because they need to fight more and are in greater danger of nonlethal injuries that they wouldn't survive if their bones would break. The example in PDW is that a cheetah pursuing a gazelle stands up again when it falls, but when the gazelle falls it often breaks its legs. According to PDW this distorts predator-prey ratios towards _more_ predators.