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National World News – Tyrannosaurus Rex A carnivorous dinosaur known for its unusually strong bite, it was able to paralyze and destroy the bones of its prey. The evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex, especially its eyes, proved to be the mystery behind its bite force.
In order to have such a powerful bite, Tyrannosaurus rex clearly had to make an evolutionary trade-off of being content with only small eyes.
Based on an analysis of 410 fossil specimens of reptiles from the Mesozoic Era (2.52 to 66 million years ago), the researchers concluded that Tyrannosaurus rex and other similar carnivores had progressively smaller eyes over time.
These small eyes compensate for the bites of Tyrannosaurus rex and other similar carnivores, making them stronger.
It is worth noting that the eye sockets of carnivores with skulls larger than 1 meter grow to resemble keyholes. And vegetarians of all ages have round eye sockets.
“It makes sense. As predators age, they become bigger prey and require more bite force to deal with,” said Stig, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at Walsh at the National Museum of Scotland. , who was not involved in the study.
Also read: Recent study claims T. rex contained three distinct species
At the same time, quoted from live scienceThis new study on the evolution of T. rex eyes supports the idea that sensory organs such as the brain and eyes had to adapt to the animals’ feeding strategies.
In this case, the feeding strategy revolved around this bone-destroying T. rex bite.
To analyze this, study author Stephen Lautenschlager, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Birmingham, UK, scoured the literature. This was done to find details of dinosaur and reptile skulls dating back to the Mesozoic.
From there, they selected hundreds of skulls with well-preserved eye sockets, as well as many incomplete skulls whose eye sockets could be reconstructed.
After comparing all the skulls, Lautenschlager noticed some patterns. Most creatures, especially herbivores, have round eye sockets.
Whereas the big-headed carnivore has an oval cavity and a keyhole. The same thing happened to Tyrannosaurus rex.
To understand how this evolution of T. rex’s eye socket shape might have affected the carnivorous dinosaur’s ability to chew bones, Lautenschlager created three computer models.
Also read: Juvenile T. rex bites aren’t as fresh as adults, here’s proof
Illustration of carnivorous dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus family (T-Rex), T.rex.
These models later showed that during simulated occlusion, keyhole-shaped sockets deformed much less than round sockets because they directed the occlusal force to the solid bone behind the sockets.
“The keyhole shape reduces cranial stress during occlusion and twisting much better than spherical. This is clearly an adaptation found in many large carnivores in different groups. Something that evolved independently. Happened,” Lautenschlager said.
Meanwhile, if the Tyrannosaurus rex did not grow long eyes, its eyes would have weighed about 20 kilograms and were 30 centimeters long.
Such large eyes were very detrimental to the T. rex’s metabolism and are at odds with what we know about dinosaur brains.
The retina is the result of a brain region called the diencephalon, and T. rex’s brain size didn’t increase with body size.
ALSO READ: Shorter arms of T. rex may reduce risk of being bitten while hunting, new study suggests
So, if the size of T. rex’s eyes matched the size of its skull, the areas of the brain associated with vision also needed to be larger.
Furthermore, although they provide strong clues about the overall shape of the eye, fossil skulls cannot reveal details of the eye’s anatomy or associated soft tissues such as nerves and muscles.
“This is a dead end we’ve encountered in paleontology because we know very little about the true shape of eyeballs based on fossil bones,” Lautenschlager said.
So in follow-up studies, the researchers will expand the eye-size analysis to include birds, the only living descendants of dinosaurs, and mammals with strong bites.
Research on the evolution of T. rex’s eyes and the powerful bite force of this carnivorous dinosaur has been published in the journal Science. Communication Biology.
Also read: Researchers find Tyrannosaurus rex fossil with bone infection
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