Real giants

There’s no denying that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was one of the largest and most fearsome dinosaurs to have ever lived on the planet. We have some fossil evidence that allows us to draw definitive conclusions about them. But scientists were also curious about how big they could get, so they set out to answer that question in a new peer-reviewed study.

The heaviest tyrannosaurus ever found was a specimen nicknamed Scotty, which weighed 8,870 kilograms (18,000 pounds) during its lifetime. But paleontologists at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa estimate that the largest T. rex may have weighed 15,000 kilograms (33,000 pounds), making it heavier than the average American school bus, which weighs about 25,000 pounds (11,000 kilograms).

According to the new study, the largest tyrannosaur would have been “about 70% larger” than Scotti, said study co-author Jordan Mallon, a scientist and head of the department of paleobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature.

• To reach such a strong conclusion, the researchers first examined fossils. About 2.5 billion tyrannosaurs once lived on EarthBut only a small fraction of these (only 32 adult fossils) have been found by humans, leaving scientists with limited information.
• They also analyzed population size and lifespan to create the largest possible T. rex model.
• Finally, the scientists looked at differences in body size based on sexual dimorphism (the difference in size between sexes of animals within the same species).

As a result, we created two models, one with zero dimorphism and one with strong dimorphism. If T. rex were dimorphic, we predicted that it would weigh up to 24,000 kilograms, but we rejected this model because if it were true, we would have found much larger individuals anyway.
says Mallon.

Using this data, scientists were able to model the growth curve of a tyrannosaurus throughout its life and estimate how large an adult individual could grow.

Artist’s illustration shows how big T. rex would have been compared to Scotty / Photo: Witton

However, the author believes that until a tyrannosaur of comparable size to the model is found, The results of the model are purely theoretical and cannot be considered a proven fact.“This is just an imaginary experiment with some numbers behind it. It’s an interesting thing to think about,” the scientist said.