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Documentary, PaleoWorld PaeoWord S01 E10 - The Legendary T-Rex
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00:07For a century, this giant beast has rampaged through the planes of our imagination.
00:13But today, new fossils raise a heretical question.
00:17Was T-Rex just a Mesozoic garbage disposal?
00:22What other nasty shocks might science hold in store for our favorite villain,
00:27the legendary T-Rex?
01:06No dinosaur has held a more ferocious grip on the popular imagination than Tyrannosaurus rex.
01:17A celebrity of international renown, T-Rex is a universal symbol of rampant destruction and blood-chilling terror.
01:30Professor, there's a big lizard back there and he's heading his way. Now, get aboard!
01:37Portrayed by Hollywood as insatiable and unstoppable,
01:45Tyrannosaurus has been cast as the ultimate predator.
02:00The all-time bestseller among dinosaurs, its teeth are for sale as plastic souvenirs.
02:08Welders create metal replicas of T-Rex to keep up with the public demand for its monster image.
02:17Famous for its nasty disposition,
02:21Rex stands guard at motels, ice cream parlors, and in public parks across the nation.
02:30The size of T-Rex is frightening.
02:33Three times the height of a man, it weighed up to seven tons.
02:38Its powerfully muscled jaw was filled with jagged, nine-inch teeth.
02:44The most frightening of all, this gigantic animal is a flesh-eater,
02:48the largest carnivorous dinosaur ever to stalk the earth.
02:54The presence of T-Rex in museums all over the world suggests an abundance of fossils.
03:00But in fact, most Tyrannosaurus on display are only models,
03:04cast from the few real fossils in existence.
03:14Although T-Rex roamed the earth for two million years,
03:18until recently, its reputation was founded on only nine incomplete specimens.
03:27All were unearthed in the badlands that stretched from Wyoming and Montana
03:31into South Dakota and Western Canada.
03:35When T-Rex first appeared 67 million years ago,
03:38a shallow inland sea bisected North America,
03:43preventing Tyrannosaurus from reaching the eastern part of the continent.
03:48The first T-Rex was the prize of legendary dinosaur hunter Barnum Brown,
03:54who discovered it in 1900,
03:57and Henry Fairfield Osborne, who named it.
04:00Both men worked for the American Museum of Natural History.
04:05At the time of T-Rex discovery,
04:07dinosaur fossils were already attracting huge crowds,
04:11for sheer size nothing like them had ever been seen before.
04:16What the fossil record lacked, human imagination provided.
04:22This movie version of a battle between T-Rex and Triceratops
04:26spawned a monster of mythic proportions
04:29that would survive for most of this century.
04:37Today, Jack Horner, curator of paleontology
04:40at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana,
04:42is one of a new breed of scientists
04:45questioning traditional ideas about dinosaurs.
04:48His suspicions that T-Rex might be an imposter
04:51began early in 1990,
04:53when a woman named Kathy Wonkle
04:55brought him an arm bone she found in Macon County, eastern Montana.
05:06Horner began excavating what would become
05:09the most complete T-Rex on record.
05:20Buried for 65 million years,
05:23the huge fossils required earth-moving equipment
05:26to take them out of the ground.
05:31The bones became the starting point
05:34for a new reconstruction of T-Rex
05:36by Montana sculptor Matt Smith.
05:39This is a 120th scale model
05:41of the Museum of the Rockies Tyrannosaurus Rex,
05:44about 38 feet long.
05:47One of the things that you notice right off
05:50is how narrow from a dorsal view it is
05:53based on the ilium and dorsal vertebrae
05:55and the ribs.
05:57T-Rex was once seen as a lumbering, tail-dragging beast.
06:02The new version could chase its prey
06:05at speeds up to 30 miles an hour,
06:07much faster than a human running at top speed.
06:13But Horner was not convinced T-Rex
06:16deserved its reputation as history's most awesome predator.
06:21When Tyrannosaurus Rex was first found,
06:25Barnum Brown brought the specimen in.
06:28Henry Fairfield Osborne was the first person to work on it,
06:32or certainly the first one to describe it.
06:36And he gave it the name Tyrannosaurus Rex,
06:39which means tyrant lizard king.
06:43And pretty much said it was a predator.
06:46But he didn't base that on anything.
06:48I mean, he didn't really do the work necessary
06:52to determine that it was.
06:53He just pretty much said it was.
06:55It was a big, carnivorous animal,
06:56the largest one ever found.
06:58And the assumption was that it was a predator.
07:03That assumption inspired the quintessential image
07:06of T-Rex as a hunter and a killer.
07:09But what Horner saw was an overgrown scavenger,
07:13a gigantic vulture preying on dead carcasses.
07:19He admits his view of T-Rex is not a popular one.
07:23People don't want to hear that Tyrannosaurus was a scavenger.
07:26They want to know that it was a predator.
07:29For some reason, that's really special.
07:32Much of T-Rex's reputation as a hunter
07:34is based on its huge size.
07:38But like a vulture, one of the largest carnivorous birds,
07:41T-Rex could have used its size to scare other scavengers away.
07:48Horner compares T-Rex with a group of predatory dinosaurs
07:51that includes Velociraptor, Trudon, and Deinonychus,
07:55all built for speed.
07:58If you were going to design a bipedal predator,
08:02you'd make a Velociraptor.
08:05They have a short femur, a short thigh bone,
08:08and a long tibia, or shin bone.
08:11And that gives them the leverage to run.
08:13That's why an ostrich can run faster than we can,
08:17even though we're about the same size.
08:19We have a femur and a tibia that are the same length.
08:23Tyrannosaurus rex also had a femur and a tibia
08:25that were the same length.
08:30For the first time,
08:32the prestige of T-Rex as a predator
08:34seemed to teeter on the brink of disaster.
08:37But soon another Tyrannosaurus rex,
08:40bigger and tougher, would take on the challenge.
08:46The lack of vegetation and the rapidly eroding sandstone
08:50on the arid badlands of South Dakota
08:52are ideal for searching out the bones
08:55of ancient creatures.
08:59Here, fossil collector Peter Larson
09:01of the Black Hills Institute
09:03has found the widely scattered remains
09:05of duck-billed dinosaurs,
09:07large plant-eating animals
09:09that were the favorite food of Tyrannosaurus rex.
09:14In 1990, Larson's team also found the largest T-Rex ever discovered.
09:22At their lab in Hill City,
09:24the team concluded that their new find
09:26was a female Tyrannosaur
09:27because it lacked an extra chevron bone
09:30found on T-Rex males.
09:32Larson believes the extra bone
09:34anchored the sex organ of the male T-Rex
09:37and allowed it to be retracted when not in use.
09:42In honor of the team member who discovered her,
09:44the new T-Rex was named Sue.
09:49Sue is slightly larger than the Museum of the Rockies specimen.
09:52Not only is each bone a little bit longer,
09:56but each bone is actually bigger around,
09:58more meaty, more beefy, more robust
10:00than the Museum of the Rockies specimen.
10:03Again, the popular image of the Tyrant Lizard King
10:06seemed in jeopardy.
10:08For in size, it appeared that the male T-Rex
10:10was no match for its Tyrant Lizard Queen.
10:17It's really not unusual for females
10:19to be larger than male Tyrannosaurus
10:20because in many other species we see the same thing.
10:23We see it in most invertebrate species,
10:25in most fish species,
10:27most amphibians,
10:28many reptiles,
10:29and even some mammals
10:29where the female is larger than the male.
10:31And it's really only in those species
10:33in which males compete
10:35for the right to impregnate multiple females
10:37that we see the males become larger.
10:40Sue and her kind lived here
10:42from 67 to 65 million years ago
10:45at the end of the age of the dinosaurs.
10:48Then the land was lush and full of life
10:50according to senior dinosaur scientist
10:52at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Canada,
10:55Phil Curry.
10:57In this part of the world,
10:58we would find that the habitats
11:01and the countryside
11:03would look a lot like the Gulf states
11:04or northern Florida does today.
11:06There was a diversity of environments
11:08along the rivers and so on,
11:09and there were wide open areas,
11:11and there were some lowland marshes and so on,
11:14but there were good places
11:15for the Tyrannosaurus to live.
11:17They could seek out food
11:18in a variety of habitats,
11:20and maybe some of those habitats
11:22favored them for hunting.
11:25Curry believes this habitat favored T. rex
11:28because it contained a variety
11:30of potential prey animals.
11:32Sharing the environment
11:33were vast herds of duckbill
11:35and horned dinosaurs,
11:37which provided T. rex
11:38with the enormous quantities of flesh
11:40it consumed each day.
11:45At Egg Mountain in northern Montana,
11:48Jack Horner has found a bone bed
11:50containing as many as 10,000 duckbills
11:52buried by a volcanic eruption
11:55far more devastating
11:56than the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
11:59that buried Pompeii.
12:00For Horner, herds like these are evidence
12:03Tyrannosaurus lived by scavenging.
12:07We had duckbill dinosaurs
12:09and horned dinosaurs
12:10traveling in these giant herds,
12:13and we can make an analogy
12:15to the Serengeti plain of Africa
12:17where we have the giant herds of wildebeest
12:20traveling by the millions,
12:23and those herds have scavengers
12:27that actually follow them,
12:29vultures and hyenas
12:30and all sorts of things.
12:33If the Tyrannosaurs were not scavengers,
12:36there probably wasn't a scavenger,
12:37so we had hundreds of animals dying
12:39and nothing eating them,
12:41which seems unlikely.
12:43The teeth of T. rex
12:45have been found
12:46among the bones
12:47of the duckbill and horned dinosaur herds
12:49that wandered across
12:50the late Cretaceous landscape.
12:53But both Phil Curry
12:54and Peter Larson
12:55disagree with Horner's scavenger theory.
13:01The reality is
13:03that there really are
13:03no pure scavengers
13:05and there are no pure hunters.
13:06A lion will eat food
13:08that's already dead
13:09if it finds it,
13:11or it will take it down
13:12if it can't find dead food.
13:16Tyrannosaurus rex
13:17and the other theropod dinosaurs
13:18would have been
13:19in the same kind of position.
13:21I believe that Tyrannosaurus rex
13:23would not pass up a free meal.
13:25It would scavenge
13:26when a meal became available.
13:28But it's not going to wait around
13:29for something to die.
13:30When it's hungry,
13:31it's going to go out and kill.
13:32Whether Tyrannosaurus
13:33killed for its food
13:34or ate carcasses,
13:36Peter Larson's colleagues
13:37found physical injuries
13:39on Sue's skeleton
13:40that proved
13:42one T. rex
13:43was not afraid
13:44to attack another.
13:45In fact,
13:46one of these ribs
13:47back here next to the shoulder
13:48we found that never really
13:49did properly heal.
13:51And back inside
13:52in that exostosis,
13:53that extra bone
13:54that grew around
13:55this infected area,
13:56we found the fragment
13:57of another Tyrannosaurus rex tooth.
13:59Sue was bitten
13:59and fought with
14:00probably many times
14:01over her life
14:02other Tyrannosaurus rex.
14:05Larson also found that Sue
14:06had been taken care of.
14:08She had once shattered
14:09a leg bone,
14:10which then healed.
14:11This meant
14:12that for a long time
14:14she had been unable
14:15to walk
14:15and could only have survived
14:17if another T. rex
14:18had brought her food.
14:20But then,
14:21says Larson,
14:21she was killed
14:22by one of her own kind.
14:28We found injuries
14:29on her skull
14:30which were not healed.
14:31Where her,
14:32the post-orbital,
14:33the bone behind her eye
14:34was crushed down.
14:35The squamosal
14:36actually had
14:37puncture marks in it
14:38and the left side
14:39of her lower jaw
14:39was ripped out
14:40of its socket
14:41and pulled to the side.
14:42I believe that Sue's face
14:43was actually ripped off
14:44by another Tyrannosaurus rex.
14:49The size
14:50and completeness
14:51of Sue
14:52promised to help
14:53resolve questions
14:54about the behavior
14:55and feeding habits
14:56of Tyrannosaurus rex.
14:59But before she could
15:00be further examined,
15:02a stroke of ill fortune
15:03whisked her away.
15:14On May 14, 1992,
15:16two FBI agents
15:17entered the facilities
15:18of the Black Hills Institute
15:20and took Sue
15:21into their custody.
15:23Peter Larson
15:24had paid $5,000
15:25to the owner
15:26of the land
15:26where Sue was found.
15:28But the site
15:29was inside
15:31the Cheyenne River
15:32Indian Reservation.
15:35A federal law
15:36prohibits outsiders
15:37from contracting
15:38with Native Americans
15:39to remove antiquities
15:40without the permission
15:41of the federal government.
15:43A local
15:44United States attorney
15:45ordered Sue
15:46to be confiscated
15:47along with all photographs,
15:49records,
15:50and papers
15:50relating to Sue
15:51and her discovery.
15:54Local townspeople
15:55were enraged.
15:56A source of local pride
15:58had been taken
15:59away from them.
16:00Sue right now
16:01is locked away
16:03in a sea freight container
16:04in storage crates
16:05and we haven't seen her
16:07for more than two years
16:08and it may be years
16:09yet before we'll be able
16:10to see her
16:10or anybody else
16:11will be able
16:12to see her.
16:13We've been fighting
16:14this battle
16:15for more than two years
16:16now and trying
16:16to get Sue back
16:17and we're going
16:18to exhaust every avenue
16:20that's available to us
16:21until we do finally
16:22get her back
16:23until she finally
16:24comes back
16:24to the Black Hills
16:25Museum of Natural History.
16:26A year and a half
16:27after her seizure,
16:29a federal appeals panel
16:31ruled against Larson
16:32and the Black Hills Institute
16:34returning Sue
16:35to the possession
16:36of the landowner.
16:39Undaunted,
16:40Peter Larson
16:40continued his search
16:41for more specimens
16:42of T-Rex.
16:44In 1992,
16:45he excavated
16:46a less complete skeleton
16:47he named Stan.
16:52Meanwhile,
16:53Jack Horner's challenge
16:54to the conventional view
16:56of T-Rex
16:56would continue
16:57to inspire debate.
17:03How could a monster
17:04with a gaping,
17:05powerful jaw
17:06full of saber-like teeth
17:07be anything
17:09but a killer?
17:16When he first discovered
17:17T-Rex in 1900,
17:19Barnum Brown assumed
17:20it was a predator.
17:21It was certainly
17:22the largest meat-eating
17:24dinosaur ever found.
17:28The monstrous skull
17:29of T-Rex
17:30in particular
17:31seemed designed
17:32for killing.
17:33Engineered to be strong,
17:35it was also light.
17:37Large holes in the skull
17:39reduced its weight.
17:41But the bone structure
17:42was strongest
17:43in the jaw
17:44to withstand
17:45the awesome force
17:46of the muscles
17:47that could crush
17:48the bones
17:49of any animal.
17:50This is a jaw
17:51of a real Tyrannosaurus Rex.
17:53You can see
17:54one of these huge teeth
17:55in place in the jaw
17:56and another tooth
17:57lying on the side
17:58of the jaw here.
17:58You can look at this
17:59long root
17:59and how it's anchored
18:01into the jaw.
18:01This was a killing machine.
18:03This was a machine
18:03which could bite
18:05through even the leg bone
18:06of another Tyrannosaurus Rex.
18:09Jack Horner is not convinced.
18:11Whether it hunted
18:13or scavenged,
18:14T-Rex would have needed
18:15its steak knife teeth
18:16and enormous jaws
18:18for cutting
18:18the huge quantities
18:19of meat
18:20it consumed
18:21into smaller chunks.
18:23But Horner's argument
18:24pivots on another part
18:25of T-Rex's anatomy.
18:27Its tiny arms
18:28that have puzzled
18:29paleontologists
18:30for decades.
18:32Horner has found
18:34with the Montana Rex
18:35the first complete arm bone
18:36of Tyrannosaurus
18:37ever discovered.
18:41Though T-Rex
18:42was over 15 feet tall
18:44its arm
18:46was no bigger
18:46than the arm
18:47of a man.
18:49Horner commissioned
18:50sculptor Matt Smith
18:51to reconstruct
18:52the arm
18:52of the Montana Rex
18:53using the musculature
18:55of a variety
18:56of modern day animals
18:57and birds
18:58for comparison.
19:02A biomechanical
19:04study of the arms
19:05showed that the animal
19:06could lift up
19:07to 400 pounds.
19:10It was stronger
19:11than expected
19:11but still puny
19:13for an animal
19:13that weighed
19:14up to 7 tons.
19:17Horner concluded
19:18the arms
19:19were virtually useless
19:20for capturing prey.
19:23Tyrannosaurus Rex's
19:24little arm
19:24would not reach
19:25its mouth.
19:26One arm wouldn't
19:27reach the other arm.
19:28It couldn't clap.
19:29Try to imagine yourself
19:30trying to catch a chicken
19:31with your hands
19:33tied behind your back.
19:34I mean,
19:35you'd be a mess.
19:36A bipedal animal
19:37needs to be able
19:38to stabilize its prey
19:39and the Tyrannosaurus Rex
19:41couldn't do that.
19:43Unquestionably,
19:43the arms of T. rex
19:44were much less efficient
19:46for capturing prey
19:47than those of Allosaurus,
19:48an earlier dinosaur
19:49that resembled T. rex.
19:52If we were to compare
19:54Tyrannosaurus Rex
19:55forelimb
19:56with an older
19:56bipedal
19:57carnivorous dinosaur
19:58Allosaurus,
19:59you can take a look
20:00at its hand
20:00and it was made
20:02for predatory behavior.
20:04Now,
20:05when you compare that
20:05to Tyrannosaurus Rex,
20:08its hand
20:08has become
20:09smaller
20:10and more,
20:11apparently,
20:12more specialized.
20:14But by far,
20:15the most impressive
20:16evidence
20:16that rex
20:17was a predator
20:18were its senses.
20:21A large meat-eating
20:23dinosaur
20:23must be able
20:24to find
20:24its potential victims
20:26anytime,
20:27anywhere.
20:27And T. rex
20:29had the means
20:29to find them.
20:30A keen sense
20:31of hearing,
20:32for example,
20:33well adapted
20:34to tracking down
20:35moving prey.
20:38And unlike most
20:39dinosaurs,
20:40its vision
20:41was stereoscopic,
20:43which made it
20:44easier to see
20:44movement.
20:45If you look
20:46at the eyes,
20:47you can see
20:47that the eyes
20:47are extremely large
20:48and the optic
20:51lobe of the brain
20:51is also well-developed.
20:53So again,
20:53there's an indication
20:54that it has
20:54a good sense
20:55of sight.
20:57Furthermore,
20:57in Tyrannosaurus Rex,
20:58the eyes are
20:59facing forward
21:00and like human beings,
21:02they would have
21:02had stereoscopic vision.
21:04This is something
21:05that would be
21:05very useful
21:06if you're a hunter,
21:07not so useful
21:07if you're a scavenger.
21:08The eyeball's
21:09going to be
21:10really tiny,
21:10really small.
21:11But if we look
21:12at the animals
21:13like Velociraptor
21:14or Troodon,
21:15they have huge eyes,
21:16they have huge openings
21:17for the eyes.
21:19Perhaps
21:20even more important
21:21for a meat-eating animal
21:22than its sense
21:23of hearing and sight
21:24was T. rex's ability
21:26to smell its potential victims,
21:28alive or dead.
21:31It has a huge
21:32olfactory bulb
21:33on the brain.
21:34We know this
21:34from cat scanning
21:35a relative of Tyrannosaurus
21:36called Nanotyrannus.
21:38This olfactory bulb
21:39gave it a tremendously
21:40acute sense of smell,
21:42a sense of smell
21:43which is not necessary
21:45for someone
21:45who is only eating carried.
21:46I mean,
21:47we as humans
21:47who have a very poor
21:49sense of smell
21:50can smell rotting animals
21:51sometimes a mile away.
21:52Remember in Jurassic Park,
21:54the guy says,
21:56don't move,
21:56the Tyrannosaur won't see you.
21:58Well,
21:59he might not have seen you,
22:00but he certainly
22:00would have smelled you.
22:02But to Horner,
22:04the large olfactory lobes
22:05of T. rex
22:06had a different meaning.
22:07For an animal
22:08that feeds primarily
22:09on dead animals,
22:11the sense of smell
22:12would be the most
22:13important sense of all.
22:16And in fact,
22:17if you compare
22:18the size of the olfactory lobe
22:20to the brain size,
22:22a Tyrannosaur had
22:23a larger olfactory lobe
22:25than any animal
22:26that ever lived
22:27except a turkey vulture.
22:29To some,
22:30the still unresolved argument
22:32over the true nature
22:33of T. rex's feeding habits
22:35might seem pointless,
22:36a scholarly exercise
22:37with little impact
22:39on our lives today.
22:42But what of the millions
22:44worldwide
22:44who cater to the Hollywood image
22:47of T. rex
22:47as our worst nightmare?
22:55If it turns out
22:56to be a scavenger after all,
22:58would Tyrannosaurus rex
23:00be ruined forever
23:01as the monster
23:02we've grown to love?
23:07In 1994,
23:09paleontologist John Storer
23:10discovered another T. rex,
23:13this one in the Canadian
23:14province of Saskatchewan.
23:16After only nine,
23:18T. rex finds
23:18in all the years
23:19from 1900 to 1990,
23:21three nearly complete skeletons
23:23have been found
23:24in the space
23:25of only four years.
23:26And with the increasing interest
23:28in paleontology,
23:29more fossil hunters
23:30are on the trail
23:31of the elusive rex.
23:35Perhaps the world
23:35will soon find out
23:36if it was truly
23:37the monster
23:38it was made out to be.
23:41Could it really be
23:43a gigantic prehistoric vulture?
23:47For now,
23:48its reputation is safe.
23:50For most of us,
23:52it is still
23:52the quintessential dinosaur.
23:55The one,
23:56the only,
23:58the legendary
23:59Tyrannosaurus rex.
24:02ernst of Olympic
24:05in 1960,
24:05a no longer
24:05world
24:05will soon be
24:06as you do here
24:06have a great place.
24:24And you see it
24:30in the Twings
24:31and a well-skogens
24:59Transcription by CastingWords
25:01CastingWords
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