Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex is arguably the most famous dinosaur of them all. Tyrannosaurus was the last and largest of the Tyrannosaurs.[1] Commonly known as "T. rex", this species lived during the Late Cretaceous Period in modern day North America and was therefore among one of the last non-avian dinosaurs. In popular culture, Tyrannosaurus has an iconic status shared by few other species. Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus had very short arms with only two fingers. Despite the limbs' size, each were able to bench-press about 400 pounds. Although these were probably nearly useless while hunting, its jaws were not: Tyrannosaurus has an enormous skull armed with teeth the size of bananas. Unlike the teeth of most theropods, the teeth of tyrannosaurids are very thick and capable of crushing bones and with a bite force of a minimum 4 tons of force and probably more, crushing bone, ripping flesh, and bursting blood vessels of the victim. The skull and neck bones show that T. rex had the largest neck muscles of any meat-eating dinosaur. It probably used its strong neck to twist and pull off big chunks of meat that it grasped with its jaws while supporting the huge head. Tyrannosaurus could bite with extremely strong force - one fossilized skeleton shows that it crushed and swallowed the bones of a smaller plant-eating dinosaur while another shows a Tyrannosaurus coprolite with the crushed frill of a Triceratops.

Paleontological Info

Tyrannosaurus rex is a genus of saurischian coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period, from the Maastrichtian zone, along the western half of what would become North America, most famously in the Formation of Hell Creek, where it coexisted among other famous and obscure dinosaurs, such as Triceratops, Edmontosaurus annectens, Ankylosaurus, Mosasaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Stygimoloch, Dakotaraptor, Anzu, Quetzalcoatlus, and Denversaurus.

Its most notable traits are its diminutive arms, large skull, and massive size of up to 40 feet in length. The small, two-fingered arms, although really tiny and seemingly useless, can actually bench-press up to 400 pounds. However, like all theropods, T. rex could not rotate or pronate its wrist to face the ground; it had to face its palms facing each other. Its large skull, accompanied by powerful neck muscles, can deliver a bone-crushing bite, up to 36,000 pounds per square inch. Although not the longest theropod dinosaur to ever walk the Earth, it's 40-45 feet in length, making it the biggest Tyrannosaur to ever live and the largest land carnivore to ever live in North America, and largest theropod in mass.

Although there is no evidence yet that T. rex had feathers, it is very likely, due to it being in Coelurosauria. However, a recent discovery found skin impressions of scales, thus morphing into the fact that its body was primarily covered with scales, minus the back, which may have been a feathered mane. Some people believed that the feathers can only be founded on young and juveniles as T-rex matures according to some studies on Dilong and Yutyrannus.

Cloning by InGen

Up to 7 Tyrannosaurus rex were cloned by InGen around 1988 in their compound on Isla Sorna. One of them was a female T. rex (often dubbed in fan media as Rexy or Roberta), who was transported to Isla Nublar to be the star attraction of Jurassic Park. The rest remained on Isla Sorna.

1993 Jurassic Park Incident

When the inspection team constituting of vertebrate paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, chaotician Dr. Ian Malcolm, lawyer Donald Gennaro, and John Hammond’s grandchildren Lex and Tim Murphy took a tour of the Park, the Tyrannosaurus was initially a no-show. Although computer technician Ray Arnold attempted to lure her to her paddock fence by tantalizing her with a goat, however, the T. rex still refused to answer the call. Dr. Alan Grant, observing this, surmised that it was because she wanted to hunt her prey rather than have it offered to her.[5]

The T. rex roars as she becomes free from her paddock. Later that night, a tropical storm forced the tour to be turned around sometime after the group visited the Triceratops Paddock. Unfortunately, due to Dennis Nedry’s programming, the tour vehicles that the tour group was shut down in front of the paddock with its electrified fencing in the same state as well. At this point, the T. rex revealed herself to the visitors by eating the goat left by the fence as bait, her hunger probably having eclipsed her pride. Gennaro, in a fit of panic, left his tour car and ran to the nearby restroom hut on a toilet to hide. By that point, the Tyrannosaurus rex moved to the disabled fencing and ripped the fencing apart with her teeth; she proceeded to step through her mangled handiwork and roar triumphantly. After a minute or two of exploring and investigating the Explorers, her attention was aroused by the light that was emitted from a flashlight Lex had activated in the front Explorer. Unaware that the source of the light was inside the car, she walked right to the front door and peered out into the jungle in front of the SUV. It was not until Tim slammed the open door next to the rex that she had discovered the source of the light. Now confident that the light was coming from inside the Explorer and that there were interesting objects inside, she set to attacking the mysterious vehicle in front of her, searching for a way to get at Lex and Tim to eat them. After failing to get at them through the vehicle's skylight, the T. rex flipped the car over and proceeded to savage the undercarriage and right rear tire whilst crushing it under her massive foot. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Grant and Dr. Malcolm, the T. rex was briefly distracted. The T. rex followed Dr. Malcolm as he fled toward the Tyrannosaur Paddock Bathroom, where she injured him by flinging the mathematician into the air just as her head came crashing through the door, causing Malcolm to be buried in the wreckage. The destruction of the building revealed the cowering Gennaro, who she proceeded to devour while Dr. Grant rescued the kids inside the car. Before long, however, the T. rex returned and pushed the vehicle over the cliff while Tim was still inside and pushing Lex and Dr. Grant off the edge with the car, though the three survived and slept in a tree for the night after they got out of the car.[5] As park game warden Robert Muldoon and Dr. Sattler were in the Tyrannosaur Paddock investigating the whereabouts of the survivors and had found Dr. Malcolm, she attacked the search party. Muldoon and Sattler had heard the T. rex roar several times before during the search and just before her ambush Malcolm heard The T. rex's footsteps. The T. rex attacked suddenly, without warning, crashing through a line of trees where she began chasing them through a tree lined corridor. After a very close chase, she was unsuccessful in catching them, and so she finally gave up, letting the trio escape the visitor center.

1993 Aftermath

1997 Isla Sorna Incident

1997 San Diego Incident

2001 Isla Sorna Incident

2015 Jurassic World Incident

2018 Isla Nublar Incident

Rexy, one of the 3 alive T-rexes, was encountered by mercenaries on Isla Nublar in 2016. She began chasing Jack towards the helicopter. She accidentally destroyed the remote which released the Mosasaurus Into the open waters. The T.rex misses Jack before grabbing the later, only to break part part of it. Seeing her hunt fail, she roars in anger at the helicopter as they fly away, she likely either watched the Mosasaurus devour the ladder and Jack or she just walked off back to the forest to take shelter during the storm. She was seen again taking down a Carnotaurus, and roaring as the volcano erupts. Since the shockwave hurt her ears, she fled to the cliff area. But she was never seen swimming, she was later captured. With all the other dinosaurs, they were being transported to the Lockwood Manor. She was used to help recover Blue, Owen and Claire escape with the bag full of her blood.

T.rex was transported to a cage where she barely fit, since Stiggy and the Indoraptor were freed, the auction was cancelled leaving the dinosaurs trapped in the cages while inhaling the poisonous gas. She was later freed by the group and was able to eat Eli Mills, before wondering to the forest, destroying the Indominus rex bone. Which would prevent any hybrids from wrecking havoc around the world. The large predator was last seen roaring at a lion near a zoo. Embryos have been sold and it‘s likely like all the dinosaurs, new clones are likely to come in the future.

Appearances

Films

Jurassic Park (1993)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Jurassic World (2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Games

Jurassic Park: The Game (2011)
Jurassic Park: Trespasser (1998)
Jurassic Park: Warpath (1999)
Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (2003)
Jurassic Park Builder (2012)
Jurassic World: The Game (2015)
Jurassic World Alive (2018)
Jurassic World Evolution (2018)
Jurassic World: Aftermath (2020)
Jurassic World Evolution 2 (2021)

Merchandise

Jurassic Park Brochure
Jurassic World Website
Jurassic World Holoscape
Dinosaur Protection Group Isla Nublar Dinosaur List

Inaccuracies

The clones seem to be slightly oversized.
The clones have pronated wrists, like all of InGen's cloned theropods.
The clones lack feathers, like all of InGen's cloned coelurosaurs, although it is currently under debate whether Tyrannosaurus had them.
The clones can see only movement because of frog DNA that got mixed with it.
The clones can run up to 32 mph unlike the originals that can only run 15-25 mph.
Ingen Rexes likely aren’t as bulky as their real life counterpart

Status

Endangered

The individual T. rex on Isla Nublar is the last remaining T. rex alive on Planet Earth, and this individual is now roaming the woods of California.