Author: Carolyn Gramling / Source: Science News for Students

T. rex
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A powerful bite, strong teeth and repeated crunching.
This is what allowed Tyrannosaurus rex to pulverize the bones of its prey. That’s the conclusion of a new analysis of the giant predator’s chomp.Bones have an inner cavity containing marrow and other nutrients. To access those goodies, some animals crunch through the dense outer protective layer of bone. Most do so by clamping their jaws together to crush the bone. Some meat-eating mammals, like spotted hyenas and gray wolves, can do this. But bone-crushing is unknown among living reptiles. Their upper and lower teeth simply don’t fit together in a way that allows them to clamp. Instead, most modern reptilian predators swallow bones whole to get at the nutrients.
Fossil evidence suggests tyrannosaurs, including T. rex, somehow pulverized the bones of their prey. But their teeth didn’t fit together like mammals’ do. So how did they crush those bones?
Paul Gignac…
The post T. rex pulverized bones with an incredible amount of force appeared first on FeedBox.