Daily Dino Fact: T-Rex takes on the sauropods
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
"Hey Rexxy?" "Yeah Rex?" "Let's just stick with prairie dogs, okay?"
Q: Did T-rex Ever Battle an adult Sauropod or come across one? -sKAC
A: Really great question sKAC! So great that I seriously spent about an hour and a half trying to track the answer down yesterday. Unfortunately, like so many dinosaur questions, couldn’t find a definite answer. However, there is some good food for thought.
Remember that Tyrannosaurus Rex was only around during the Late Cretaceous. Many species of sauropod (including some of the biggest) had gone extinct by that point but there were certainly others that roamed the same lands as the famous T-Rex. T-Rex would have encountered sauropods like Alamosaurus and Dsylocosaurus during the Late Cretaceous in North America.
Still the question remains – did they do battle? Probably not. While the Late Cretaceous sauropods were not as big as earlier species, they were still huge. He may have been the most dangerous predator of his time, but T-Rex would have had a tough time taking down a sauropod. One well placed stomp would have crushed T-Rex, either killing it immediately or leaving an injury that would slowly kill it. Sauropods also likely traveled in groups – making it all that much harder. Even if a sauropod went down, T-Rex couldn’t eat the whole thing by itself in one meal and most would go to waste or other scavengers.
More likely, T-Rex would prey on smaller animals like hadrosaurs, making for a more efficient and easier meal.
What do you think?
-Rex
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