Tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptor may have had lips covering their teeth, new study finds | 24CA News

An worldwide group of paleontologists has discovered proof that will change the trendy understandings of the Tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptor.

A paper printed within the journal Science launched on Thursday says new proof means that as a substitute of enormous, uncovered tooth, the dinosaur species truly had lips enclosing their mouths.

This discovery is a major step in uncovering a extra correct image of creatures that lived greater than 66 million years in the past and will change reconstructions and depictions of dinosaurs sooner or later, in line with specialists within the subject.

Derek Larson, a co-author of the paper and a paleontologist on the Royal B.C. Museum, stated that the dinosaurs’ lips weren’t the “kissing lips” seen on mammals right this moment. They had been probably much less dexterous and extra much like the lips of recent lizards.

For a very long time, theropod dinosaurs such because the T. rex had been thought-about to have uncovered tooth, much like trendy crocodiles, considered too massive to be contained behind the lips. 

Gavin Bradley, a paleontologist from the University of Alberta who is not concerned with the paper, stated that they had been thought-about to have uncovered tooth — much like one in all their closest residing relations, the trendy crocodile. 

“When we were trying to reconstruct the physiology or behaviour of dinosaurs, we often looked at their closest living relatives, so that would be crocodiles or birds…but crocodiles don’t have lips,” he stated.

This has influenced fashionable depictions of the T. rex in artist renderings and movies, together with Jurassic Park, stated Thomas Cullen, the examine’s lead creator and an assistant professor at Auburn University in Alabama.

“I think this is another piece in that puzzle of getting people to think of these animals as just that, as animals and not necessarily as movie monsters,” he stated.

Uncovering the proof 

Cullen says he first started trying into proof of lips on theropods a couple of decade in the past when he labored on the University of Toronto, alongside different paleontologists, together with Larson, on the college and Royal Ontario Museum. It began as a facet undertaking, born from hypothesis about whether or not it was potential to show the existence of elements of dinosaurs — reminiscent of lips — that will have been misplaced to time.

“The soft tissues have all decayed away, so we are left with indirect forms of evidence,” stated Larson.

In their seek for proof of lips, the researchers took two approaches: analyzing the wear and tear patterns on T. rex tooth enamel and evaluating its jaw and tooth proportions to trendy lizards.

They discovered that the T. rex had equal tooth enamel thickness, which was extra according to tooth which can be consistently hydrated inside a mouth than the uneven enamel on uncovered crocodile tooth.

When evaluating the tooth and cranium proportions to trendy monitor lizards, the group additionally found that the T. rex had usually sized tooth for a predator of its measurement — and a few trendy lizards with lips truly had bigger tooth in comparison with their cranium measurement.

Cullen says this proof got here in across the identical time in 2017 and was the primary vital push that allowed them to begin turning into assured in the existence of lips.

New findings open up new avenues of examine

Larson is trying ahead to listening to what Canadians and the paleontology neighborhood must say about these findings.

“It’s very exciting to make discoveries like this … and to finally bring them to light so that other members of the public and other scientists can see our work and evaluate that,” he stated.

François Therrien, a curator on the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alta., says that the depiction of the T. rex as a toothy, killing machine got here from a time when paleontologists first uncovered dinosaur bones and had been in awe of their scary look. 

However, he notes that even a home cat’s skeleton might look fierce by itself. 

“[Cats] have big canines [and] big sharp teeth, but once you put all the flesh on the muscles and the fur on top, then there are those cute little pets that you want to play with.

“Not that I’m saying that, principally, dinosaurs would have been good pets, however they’d most likely not have been as scary as what their bones appear to inform us,” Therrien said.

Bradley said that this discovery could change reconstructions and depictions of dinosaurs going forward. 

“For years, we have at all times had that large image of Tyrannosaurus rex with these steak-knife-like tooth out within the open, exhibiting us its toothy grin,” he said. “If individuals are conserving updated on this analysis after we’re doing these reconstructions within the media and books and issues like that, you would possibly see these tooth start to be lined up.”

One of the specimens the analysis group used on this examine was a Field-Museum-of-Natural-History T. rex nicknamed Sue, the most important T. rex ever uncovered. 

Canadians can see Sue’s tooth and cranium on the Royal B.C. Museum in a travelling exhibit that may open on June 16.

In current years, Therrien says analysis has shifted from investigating the genetics of dinosaurs to discerning their look, together with the invention that they could have been lined in feathers.

Even for creatures that final walked the Earth thousands and thousands of years in the past, Cullen expects there may be nonetheless extra to be taught in regards to the look of dinosaurs. He plans to look subsequent on the thickness of  T. rex’s gums in comparison with trendy lizards.