The Tyrannosauras Rex Was a Gentle Lover, Scientists Say

March 31, 2017 12:34 pm
The Tyrannosauras Rex Was More Sensitive Than We Previously Thought
A Tyrannosaurus Rex menaces the theme park's first customers in a scene from the film 'Jurassic Park,' 1993. (Murray Close/Getty Images)
The Tyrannosauras Rex Was More Sensitive Than We Previously Thought
A Tyrannosaurus Rex menaces the theme park’s first customers in a scene from the 1993 film ‘Jurassic Park.’ (Murray Close/Getty Images)

 

No, this is not an early April Fool’s prank. Scientists recently published a study in the journal Scientific Reports, noting that the Tyrannosauras Rex had an extremely sensitive nose, and per a Telegraph story on the study, “In courtship … [the dinosaurs] might have rubbed their sensitive faces together as a vital part of pre-copulatory play.”

In other words, T. Rex’s may have rubbed one another’s snouts as an act of foreplay.

Per the publication, the findings have been supported by the discovery of the remains of a T. Rex relative in Montana. Predating the T. Rex and a much smaller animal, the Daspletosaurus apparently had a cluster of nerve openings on its snout, basically turning it into an ultra-sensitive “third hand.”

Read the study here.

 

—RealClearLife

 

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