Tyrannosaurus Rex Debate

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Ok, so what do you think? Was T rex a predator or a scavenger?

[ February 20, 2003, 12:18: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

If I had teeth like that I wouldn't be scavaging

 

I saw an interresting documentaire the other day, showing that the T-Rex lacked the speed to be a predator. It simply used it's length and impressive appearance to scare off predators like the Velociraptor, who just cought a prey. Kinda like the lion, i guess he was a bit lazy as well.

 

Hey - when you are THAT big, does it really matter??

 

If I had arms like that I wouldn't be predating.

 

Scavenger, definetely.

Unpractical arms, too heavy for speed. If this was a predator, no wonder he became extinct.

 

Well, recent studies have shown that it may have been a scavenger though. Nothing definite yet. I'll leave it to the experts. But if T-Rex was a scavenger, it would make watching stuff like Lost World or Jurassic Park weird.

 

Scavenger, but it would be funny when it falls to it's side, How does it get up?

 

Actually, its said that if T rex fell, the weight of his skull would cause it to shatter when it hit the ground. He wouldn't be yelling, "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

 

If onely that would happen to Barny

 

Discussion ends, case closed, no need to argue.

i am a vegetarian.

 

psst ... teeck. If you're going to re-register to make a joke, you might want to put in a different e-mail address.

Way to easy to track that way

BUSTED

 

I've always figured that he would have had to be a bit of both (Omnivorous, in a meat eating sense) since he would have to eat quite frequently to bolster his mass. I've heard that the mighty lion will occasionally steal other animals' kills. But I can't imagine that his huge teeth weren't used fairly frequently to kill prey.

 

(first of all, my dino knowledge is in chinese, the translation will be a headache so i will get around this and use as much layman language as possible)
i think it all depends on what kind of dino T-Rex hunt. If T-Rex is hunting a bigger kind of dino, speed wouldn't be a crucial problem. Given the size of a T-rex, don't tell me it wouldn't go for a big sized dino.
As for the reduced size of arm, again it depends on the food it hunts and the hunting style. If its daily living doesn't require that much arm movement, who needs them?

oh, my guess? Both, they just eat when they see an opportunity, regardless of scaring smaller predator away and scavenge their prey or find a prey itself.


if i want to use another no so obvious email address, i would need to go through all the process to apply for another one. All my email address are teekc@different domain.com. Just for the fun of it, well, so what if i get busted?

 

Considering my response to the posting from "trex," I would have to guess that Math was about to send a PM saying how much he enjoyed the comment when he caught onto your joke. It was VERY good!

 

Exactly ... and I really doubted you'd get busted (if it was you).

I got very odd looks because when I read it, I really was laughing out loud here in my cube!

 

As for arms, well, I know that the environments are drastically different, but some very efficient predators (crocs, sharks) don't have efficient arms. Just a thought.

 

True, but T-Rex's jaws don't seem very suited for grappling prey. The idea of it bending down and dragging down a Triceratops with its teeth alone (its arms probably won't help) is strange to me.

 

Hey! I just got this month's issue of National Geographic, and it addresses this very topic! For the record (and my last post on this topic), I say T-Rex was both -- an eater of opportunity, as it were.