What We’ve Discovered About the ‘Tyrant Lizard King’ Since the Nation’s T. rex Was Unearthed #fossil #dinosaur #paleontology #trex #SUETheTrex

Tyrannosaurus rex was first discovered in 1900, and named in 1905. But not much was known about how it lived or died. (USNM 555000 and USNM 500000, Smithsonian)

Smithsonian Magazine has a post about Tyrannosaurus rex.  To date, about 50 T. rexes have been found, quite a few of those have been fragmentary.  The Nation's T. rex was discovered in 1988 in Montana by local rancher Kathy Wankel.  It is often referred to as the "Wankel Rex".  Since then, we have learned so much about T. rex.  This story discusses those findings.

• The species might have only lived on earth 2 million years
• They could have feathers.
• Some fossilized bones my hold traces of blood.

Back when the first T. rex skeleton was found, scientists didn’t know its age very precisely. They didn’t have the necessary technology to date fossil rocks so old. And with so few specimens to study, it was impossible to figure out how long the species existed before it went extinct.

“They just didn’t have a very good way of specifying its age,” said Carrano.

Now, researchers use technology like radiometric dating to analyze the rock beds surrounding dinosaur fossils to find out when different dinosaur species were alive.

“This is usually done in parallel with geologists who are working to more broadly understanding the ages of different rocks on Earth,” said Carrano.

Since 1988 when the Nation’s T. rex was discovered, scientists have revealed that Tyrannosaurus rex roamed Western North America around 68 to 66 million years ago, or at the tail end of the Cretaceous. The species survived no more than 2 million years — and perhaps even less — a fairly short time geologically speaking.