Sunday, August 2, 2009

Ah, T, how we've loved ya

Oh, Tyrant Lizard King
T. Rex
Tyrannosaurus Rex


This diagram is the
Olfactory Tract of T
(almost 8 inches long, see below)
your sense of smell was evidently quite astute
funny to think your blood runs through our cars

and of jim morrison singing I am the lizard king

Regarding Olfaction
The Royal Saskatchewan Museum has this to say about their nicknamed Scotty T

Scotty’s skull is an average size, for a T. rex. It is slightly over 1.32 m (4 feet) in length. T. rex had about 50 teeth in its mouth; the largest tooth is up to 30 cm (1 foot) long, although about two-thirds of that is root. The teeth have serrated edges and are curved backward, and are obviously designed for grabbing, stabbing and crushing.
T. rex’s teeth were large but its brain was small—approximately 17 cm (6 3/4 inches) long. However, the organs responsible for smell are huge—approximately 20 cm (8 inches) long. This would have given T. rex a very keen sense of smell and, as a result, palaeontologists think that T. rex was a scavenger rather than a hunter.
LA's tip o' the hat to Monty Python's Spamalot:
Huge tracts of smelling and smell


The article click here reveals new finds on the environment of T rex and other flora and fauna 65 million years ago with interesting information on environmental changes in Saskatchewan as fossilized. This, if you believe in life on earth before 6,000 years ago.