Tyrannosaurus Rex

The Tyrannosaurus Rex (tye-RAN-oh-SAWR-us-recks) or T-Rex, is a large theropod dinosaur that appears throughout the Jurassic Turok. The T-Rex is one of the most well-known of all dinosaurs. It is no longer considered the largest of the theropods. Tyrannosaurus was the last and largest of the Tyrannosaur family, or tyrant dinosaurs.

Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus had very short arms with only two fingers. 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. 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. Tyrannosaurus could bite with extremely strong force - one fossilized skeleton shows that it crushed and swallowed the bones of a smaller plant-eating dinosaur.

More real-life information: Tyrannosaurus Rex at Wikipedia.

Appearance
The T-Rex appears as a massive two-fingered carnivorous dinosaur. It is easily recognized because it is a famous dinosaur and it has made an appearance in much of the Turok media released. It is easily one of the series trademarks. Usually it is a brown colored animal (Rexy) but in some cases it is green (Tyrannosaur Buck) or orange (Female T-Rex). They are also very powerful animals being able to take a lot of punishment before going down and they can dish out the punishment too with their brute force. The largest T-Rex in the series is the specimen known as Mama Scarface. Normally, a Tyrannosaurus Rex holds a height of 4.5 meters (14.5 feet) tall, length of 11 meters (37 feet) long, and weight of 7 tons.

Notable individuals

 * Rexy
 * Tyrannosaur Buck
 * Infant T-Rex
 * Mama Scarface
 * Female T-Rex
 * Juvenile T-Rex

Variants
While most T-Rexes in the franchise have been the same generals species, Jurassic Turok 2 was going to incorporate variants based on their environment.

Spelling
Tyrannosaurus Rex is the only dinosaur of which the Species. name is well known. For example, most people don't say Triceratops horridus or Stegosaurus armatus. However, most people don't know the spelling rules for scientific species names. This has caused Tyrannosaurus to be the most misspelled dinosaur name.

Michael Crichton called the creature Tyrannosaurus Rex, or for short T-Rex, in his novels. In most Jurassic Park media and film subtitles the creature is called T-Rex or T. Rex.

However popular, this spelling is wrong. Dinosaur names are created according to the rules of the Binomial nomenclature. Binomial names consist of two parts. Tyrannosaurus is the genus name, while Rex is the species name. Genus names must be written with a capital letter but the species name don't. In many cases the (mostly long names) are shortened. In that case, only the first letter of the Genus name is written. That letter is followed by a period, not a "-". All binomial nomenclatural taxon should be written in italics.

Therefore, the taxa be written like this:

or for short:
 * Tyrannosaurus Rex
 * T-Rex

The InGen Field Guide is one of the few pieces of Jurassic Park media that uses the right names. Although T-Rex is the most widely used spelling, it shouldn't be fostered any scientific illiteracy.

Description and Statistics
Tyrannosaurus Rex is described as being capable of running as fast as 32 mph by John Hammond.

As far as size goes, of the five Tyrannosaurs to prominently appear in the series, the adult female seen in the first film was 43 feet long and between 16 and 17 feet tall, making her one of largest predators to appear in the Jurassic Turok trilogy. The sub-adult male to appear in the third film was listed at 37 feet long and only about 10 feet tall at the hip (inaccurately measured at 14.5ft at the top of the skull, which is not a standard form measurement). The infant to appear in the second film appeared to be no more than 3 feet tall and just 6 feet long.

They display some sexual dimorphism. Males have more prominent lacrimal ridges than females. Males also have a tendency to have visible facial scaring (possibly due to battles over territory with other T-Rex and carnivores or mates). Females are also brown in color than males, and somewhat larger. Males are slightly smaller than females, and are a molted green in color. They also have a large throat pouch that females seem to lack. Males are typically green (male T-Rexes), while females are typically molted brown, (female T-Rexes) In Jurassic World the coloration within males also reveals that adults can be a lighter green, have less prominent markings and have yellow markings around their head region, however this is ever seen in most Rexes.

Eyesight Debate
Dr. Alan Grant states that the sight of Tyrannosaurus Rex is based on movement, so if you don't move the animal won't see you. Alan Grant uses this knowledge to escape from the T-Rexes.

But, as stated by Dr. Richard Levine, this is very unlikely because many animals (including humans) freeze or play dead when they are scared. If the Tyrannosaurus wasn't able to see non-moving creatures, it would miss most of its prey. Richard Levine explains the previous instances in which people escaped from the Tyrannosaurus Rex by freezing with: "the only reason it would not eat you is if it was not hungry."

Supporting Dr. Alan Grant's theory is that the Tyrannosaurus may not be able to see you, so to counteract this, the T-Rex gives a loud roar to scare its prey into revealing their position by running away. The Tyrannosaurus Rex may then make the kill. Supporting Levine's theory, in the T-Rex, when it escapes from its paddock, eats Donald Gennaro which may have satisfied its hunger. This may be why, instead of the Tyrannosaurus eating Grant as well, it only gave a roar to scare him out of her territory. This way the threat to her territory was eliminated.

Michael Crichton takes the blame of the wrong theory, that Tyrannosaurus sight is based on movement, away from Dr. Alan Grant. It is stated that the paleontologist Dr. John Roxton wrote an article in which he stated that the brain of the Tyrannosaurus Rex was very similar to that of frogs. Therefore, Dr. Roxton concluded that T-Rexes sight was based on movement. Alan Grant and also the biologist George Baselton had no expertise in brain anatomy and accepted the conclusions of the article.

It is possible that since it was a predator with binocular vision, Tyrannosaurus had trouble seeing stationary prey in the dark, though this is a dubious theory. Dr.Grant suggested should be applied (the 'don't move' tactic) on Isla Sorna when they stumbled upon a Tyrannosaurus Rex - in broad daylight. The T-Rex killed Gennaro because he while he was still in one place, he was visibly shaking and moving his arms, therefore revealing his position to the T-Rex. Some parts of Gennaro were found when Malcolm was discovered. Few of the characters in the story run into a Tyrannosaurus devouring its prey (Parasaurolophus according to the special effects commentary). The T-Rex then gives a roar scaring the party into running away. The Tyrannosaurus then chases the group. This ironically can support either side of the debate. The Tyrannosaurus Rex may have not been able to see the group so it scared them into running so he could find them or he may have not been hungry from eating its prey, so it just wanted to scare the group away by roaring and chasing them away. Supporting this is the fact, the Tyrannosaurus chases a jeep away from her territory then ceases the pursuit despite the fact that she could have easily destroyed the jeep.

Hunting
Tyrannosaurus were depicted as apex predators and as such spent a lot of time following game trails. They seemed to prefer to ambush prey animals, and it was once thought that this was possibly because of their motion sensitive eyesight, which has since been disproved. It was once theorized that most prey animals freeze when afraid because the Tyrannosaurus supposedly lacked the ability to see stationary prey. In actuality, Tyrannosaurus have an excellent binocular vision. (see Eyesight Debate) The Tyrannosaurus are not random killers, however, and are less likely to attack when full.

Parenting
The Tyrannosaurus are also shown as being a protective parent. Tyrannosaurus are shown to pair off during mating, and both parents will remain with their offspring during its growth, exhibiting very powerful parenting and protective instincts, going to great lengths to ensure an infant's safety. Tyrannosaurus are territorial by nature, and will attempt to drive away anything that might be deemed dangerous, whether animate or not. They are known to be efficient parents, with both male and female keeping close guard over infants and bringing them food for a considerable matter of months. They will ferociously defend their offspring during this stage from predators and humans, and will even travel far outside their native territories to find them if they get lost. Like most predators, they presumably teach their young how to hunt once the time comes.

While no T-Rex nest has yet been found in the real world, the living relatives of Tyrannosaurus (birds and crocodilians) guard their nests and take care of their babies. Similarly, there is evidence from nests of smaller meat-eaters and from various plant-eaters that many dinosaurs were good parents. So the simplest explanation at present is that, fearsome though it may have been, Tyrannosaurus Rex probably looked after its eggs and young.