What happened
Tyrannosaurus rex, the “king of the dinosaurs,” was warm-blooded, with an average body temperature of 97 degrees Fahrenheit, scientists reported Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. The researchers, from UCLA, calculated the dinosaur’s temperature by analyzing the chemical makeup of tiny samples of enamel drilled from three T. rex teeth.
That “clever geochemistry technique” revealed that “T. rex ran hot, but not too hot,” The New York Times said, “somewhere on the body-temperature spectrum near large mammals like Indian elephants (97 degrees) or humans (98 degrees).”
Who said what
The T. rex temperature is “unusually high for a reptile,” CNN said, but dinosaurs “share an evolutionary link with birds,” and 97 degrees “sits between” reptiles and “modern avians.” The findings “can help scientists piece together how the dinosaur might have lived,” said The Associated Press. The UCLA researchers calculated that T. rex “could have lived across most of prehistoric North America.” Being warm-blooded “really places new constraints on its behavior, its physiology, how it interacted with other species and how much food it needed,” study co-author Robert Eagle told CNN.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
What next?
Scientists plan to “test these methods on other dinosaurs to see how warm or cold they ran,” the AP said. “There’s lots of interesting, charismatic species that could be explored using this,” said Eagle.
