The Meat Eaters

A Tyrannosaurus, painting.

       About the best known of all the dinosaurs was the tyrant lizard‚Tyrannosaurus (tye-ran-o-SAWR-us), who has been named the king of the dinosaurs. He was given this name because paleontologists believe that he was probably the most ferocious dinosaur. He measured fifty feet from his head to the tip of his tail. When he stood upright his head was twenty feet above the ground. He must have weighed around eight tons. He was the largest meat-eater that has ever lived on land.

       Tyrannosaurus walked on his very heavy and very strong hind legs. He probably used his heavy tail to help balance himself on them. He might also have been able to use his tail as a whip. Think how easily he could have knocked another dinosaur off-balance with one swipe of his big tail!

       The terrible claws on his hind legs made good weapons for an aggressive meat-eater. He had three forward-facing claws on his hind legs and, higher up on the back of each leg, another large claw. His front legs were so small that they must have looked ridiculous for an animal of that large size. They were too small and weak to have supported his eight tons of weight, and so they were probably not of much use to him. He could not have walked on all four legs because he would have fallen flat on his face before his short front legs could touch the ground. If he had tried to use his front legs as hands and arms to feed himself, he probably would have found that they were too short to reach his mouth.

       Tyrannosaurus had a very large head with big, strong jaws. He could have opened his mouth very wide to take large bites. He probably fed by bending over his victim and tearing off large chunks of flesh with his long, pointed teeth. Some of his dagger-like teeth were six inches long. Can you imagine teeth that were half a foot in length?

       Another meat-eater was Gorgosaurus (gor-go-SAWR-us), whose name means terrible lizard. Gorgosaurus was not as large as Tyrannosaurus, but the two dinosaurs were closely related and lived during the same period. Gorgosaurus was about thirty feet long and, when he stood upright, about fifteen feet tall. He may have weighed as much as six tons (African elephants of today weigh from six to seven tons).

       Gorgosaurus also had very short front legs that were probably not of much use to him in feeding. Like his larger cousin‚ Tryannosaurus, he also walked on his hind legs. One paleontologist has suggested that Gorgosaurus crouched down on his tremendous hind legs when he fed. It has also been suggested that when Gorgosaurus slept he might have laid flat on his stomach with his tail stretching out behind him.

       These meat-eating kinds of dinosaurs were more streamlined and therefore had more speed than some of the other dinosaurs. Because they walked on their hind legs, they probably could run much faster than the heavy dinosaurs that walked on all four legs. The ability to run fast or to move quickly is needed by meat-eating animals. Animals that hunt need also heavy, powerful jaws and long, sharp teeth.

       Fossil skeletons of Tyrannosaurus and Gorgosaurus are not found as often as the skeletons of some of the other dinosaurs. The skeleton of Gorgosaurus on exhibition in this Museum is one of the seven skeletons of Gorgosaurus that are known.