The most famous predator in the history of the Earth never ceases to amaze. Henry Fairfield Osborn first described Tyrannosaurus rex in 1905. Since then, its monstrous fossil remains have inspired works of art, novels, and movies that have made this animal one of the most famous in the world. Since 2019, in addition, we have the largest specimen of all those found to date.
A giant from the past
Baptized as Scotty, this tyrannosaurus rex was about 12 meters long and weighed 8,800 kilos . According to the researchers who published the description in “The Anatomical Record,” it is the largest T. rex in the world. Or, in the words of Scott Persons :
“This is the rex of rexes.”
Scotty lived at the end of the Cretaceous, about 66 million years ago, in present-day Canada. Scott Persons, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta (Canada), led the study of the exceptional fossil find, as this is the largest carnivorous dinosaur of all that we know of.
“There is considerable size variability among tyrannosaurs. Some individuals were longer or more robust than others. Scotty was slightly larger than other Tyrannosaurus rex specimens.”
In fact, it outsizes Sue, the famous Tyrannosaurus rex at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. However, Sue remains the best preserved rex fossil, with 90% of its skeleton. Scotty’s preserved bones make up about 65% of the complete skeleton. The researchers have been able to rescue the skull, the braincase, the lower jaw, neck vertebrae, back and tail, parts of the hip, legs and shoulders. Persons spoke of the find thus:
“Heavier than an African elephant and longer than a school bus, Scotty is the largest land predator currently known to science. Getting it out of the ground and into the scientific literature has been a process spanning more than two decades of hard work. Being a member of this dedicated team of tyrannosaur researchers has been a career highlight.”
Decades of work
The Scotty fossil was discovered in 1991, but its description was not published until 2019 . The reason is that the remains were found in sandstone, a very hard stone that has required a decade of work to remove and extract the bones without damaging them. From there the challenge was to assemble the pieces of a puzzle with millions of years. Once the skeleton was reconstructed, the researchers were able to study the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen as a whole.
The discovery took place near the city of Eastend, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Specifically in the so-called Frenchman formation, a paleontological site that houses fossil remains from the late Cretaceous, with chronologies between 72 and 65 million years ago. Upon discovery, paleontologists toasted with Scotch whisky, and from that moment the nickname of the tyrannosaurus was born.
The oldest T. rex
Scotty is not only the largest tyrannosaurus in the world, but also the one that lived the longest. He died when he was in his 30s, which is an unusually long lifespan according to experts . Three decades of life in the world of dinosaurs, where the law of the strongest was applied, led him to overcome several violent experiences.
The fossilized skeleton shows some injuries that have left visible traces. Scotty had broken ribs, a jaw infection and what could be another Tyrannosaurus rex bite on his tail.
Undoubtedly, beyond the fascinating spectacle of finding the largest Tyrannosaurus rex fossil in the world, science has one more relatively well-preserved specimen to continue gathering information about the most famous dinosaur of all time.
References:
Geggel, L. 2019. Meet Scotty, the New T. Rex Heavyweight Champion of the World. livescience.com.
Persons, WS et al. 2019. An Older and Exceptionally Large Adult Specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex. The Anatomical Record 303, 4, 656-672. DOI: 10.1002/ar.24118.
