Skull and life reconstruction of Tyrannosaurus rex with original eye socket and eye (left) and hypothetical reconstruction with circular eye socket and enlarged eye (right). Credit: Dr Stephan Lautenschlager, University of Birmingham.
Phys.org has a story about the strength of a T-rex bite. A new study, published in the journal Communications Biology, looked at the shape of eye sockets to determine how it affected bite force. The skulls of about 500 different dinosaurs were analyzed and the researchers found that a circular eye socket was prone to higher stresses than the oval or "figure eight" shape of some top predators.
Large dinosaur predators, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, evolved different shapes of eye sockets to better deal with high bite forces, new research has shown.
While in many animals—and most dinosaurs—the eye socket is just a circular hole in the skull housing the eyeball, this is very different in large carnivores.
In a new study, published today in Communications Biology, researchers at the University of Birmingham reveal how the unusual elliptical, or oval, eye sockets found in the skulls of these predators could have evolved to help the skull absorb impact as they pounced on prey.
Dr. Stephan Lautenschlager, Senior Lecturer for Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham and author of the new study, analyzed the shape of the eye sockets of about 500 different dinosaurs and related species.