A snapshot of the Tyrannosaurus known as "Stan" at the Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Bruxelles. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Of all the organisms scientists have found in the fossil record, Tyrannosaurus rex is the most prominent ambassador for paleontology. No dinosaur hall is complete without at least some fragment of the tyrant dinosaur, and almost anything about the dinosaur is sure to get press coverage. We simply can’t get enough of old T. rex. It was no surprise, then, that a census of Tyrannosaurus specimens from Montana’s Hell Creek Formation published by Jack Horner, Mark Goodwin and Nathan Myhrvold in PLoS One gained wide media coverage, but there was a sub-story that many news outlets missed. Rather than overturning the image of Tyrannosaurus as a predator, as some reports claimed, the conclusions of the new study actually brought Horner’s stance on the iconic dinosaur close to what other experts thought.
Read More at Smithsonian.com's Dinosaur Tracking
Posted By: Brian Switek