Tyrannosaurus rex, the Tyrant King

by Larson, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780253350879
• ISBN10: 0253350875
• Edition: CD
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

With its massive head, enormous jaws, and formidable teeth,Tyrannosaurus rexhas long been the young person's favorite creepy carnivore in the Mesozoic zoo. Nor hasT. rexbeen ignored by the scientific community, as this new collection amply demonstrates. Scientists explore such questions as whyT. rexhad such small forelimbs; how the dinosaur moved; what bone pathologies tell us about life in the Cretaceous; and whetherT. rexwas a predator, a scavenger, or both. There are reports on newly discovered skeletons, on variation and sexual dimorphism, and how the big beasts chewed. The methods used by the contributors to unlock the mysteries ofT. rexrange from "old fashioned" stratigraphy to contemporary computer modelling. Together they yield a wealth of new information about one of the dinosaur world's most famous carnivores. An enclosed CD-ROM presents additional photographic and filmed reconstructions of the mighty beast.

Author Biography

Peter Larson is founder and president of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota, whose staff was responsible for excavating the T. rex known as "Stan." He lives in Hill City, South Dakota.

Kenneth Carpenter is the dinosaur paleontologist for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He is author of Eggs, Nests, and Baby Dinosaurs (IUP, 2000) and editor of The Carnivorous Dinosaurs (IUP, 2005) and The Armored Dinosaurs (IUP, 2001). He lives in Aurora, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Supplemental CD-ROM Contents	p. ix
Contributors	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Institutional Abbreviations	p. xv
One Hundred Years of Tyrannosaurus rex: The Skeletons	p. 1
Wyoming's Dynamosaurus imperiosus and Other Early Discoveries of Tyrannosaurus rex in the Rocky Mountain West	p. 57
How Old Is T. rex? Challenges with the Dating of Terrestrial Strata Deposited during the Maastrichtian Stage of the Cretaceous Period	p. 63
Preliminary Account of the Tyrannosaurid Pete from the Lance Formation of Wyoming	p. 67
Taphonomy of the Tyrannosaurus rex Peck's Rex from the Hell Creek Formation of Montana	p. 75
Taphonomy and Environment of Deposition of a Juvenile Tyrannosaurid Skeleton from the Hell Creek Formation (Latest Maastrichtian) of Southeastern Montana	p. 83
One Pretty Amazing T. rex	p. 93
Variation and Sexual Dimorphism in Tyrannosaurus rex	p. 103
Why Tyrannosaurus rex Had Puny Arms: An Integral Morphodynamic Solution to a Simple Puzzle in Theropod Paleobiology	p. 131
Looking Again at the Forelimb of Tyrannosaurus rex	p. 167
Rex, Sit: Digital Modeling of Tyrannosaurus rex at Rest	p. 193
T. rex Speed Trap	p. 205
Atlas of the Skull Bones of Tyrannosaurus rex	p. 233
Palatal Kinesis of Tyrannosaurus rex	p. 245
Reconstruction of the Jaw Musculature of Tyrannosaurus rex	p. 255
Vestigialism in a Dinosaur	p. 283
Tyrannosaurid Pathologies as Clues to Nature and Nurture in the Cretaceous	p. 287
The Extreme Lifestyles and Habits of the Gigantic Tyrannosaurid Superpredators of the Late Cretaceous of North America and Asia	p. 307
An Analysis of Predator-Prey Behavior in a Head-to-Head Encounter between Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops	p. 355
A Critical Reappraisal of the Obligate Scavenging Hypothesis for Tyrannosaurus rex and Other Tyrant Dinosaurs	p. 371
Tyrannosaurus rex: A Century of Celebrity	p. 399
Index	p. 429
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