Glowing Dinosaursby Firoiu Dan Nicolae Reserve a copy
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Tyrannosaurus in cyan and pink, bones glowing through a clear body, mouth open

N° 006 · I. Hunters

Tyrannosaurus

The Tyrant King

Say it: tie-RAN-oh-SORE-us

Species
Tyrannosaurus rex, Osborn 1905
Name means
Tyrant lizard king
Lived
Late Cretaceous, about 68 to 66 million years ago
Found
Western United States and Canada
Length
About 12 m
Weight
About 7 tonnes; the largest perhaps 9
Diet
Carnivore

Three things to know

A bite to crush bone

One computer model puts the force at the back teeth at about 33,000 to 54,000 newtons, the strongest bite known for any land animal. Fossil dung, most likely its own, is up to half bone fragments.

A nose for the hunt

The hollow in its skull for the smelling part of the brain is large for its size. A keen nose would have served both to hunt living prey and to find carcasses.

Fast youth, short life

Growth rings in its bones show a spurt from about age 14 to 18, when it gained some two kilograms a day. Sue, the oldest animal in that study, died at about 28.

Every fact on this page is traced to a published source, listed at the back of the book.

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Tyrannosaurus in the book

The real spread of N° 006 from the atlas: the text page with the facts, notes and six signs on the left, the plate on the right.

Tyrannosaurus in the book: the left-hand text pageTyrannosaurus in the book: the right-hand plate page

Three plates of Tyrannosaurus

Each dinosaur in the atlas has three glowing plates. These are the second and third plates of Tyrannosaurus.

Plate II of Tyrannosaurus: the glowing skeleton and muscles from another anglePlate III of Tyrannosaurus: the glowing head and jaws

When and where Tyrannosaurus lived

Tyrannosaurus lived at the very end of the age of dinosaurs, about 68 to 66 million years ago, across what is now the western United States and Canada. Its bones are found in rocks such as the Hell Creek Formation of Montana and the Dakotas, which record warm, wooded river plains. It shared that world with Triceratops, duck-billed dinosaurs and armoured ankylosaurs, and it was among the last non-bird dinosaurs alive when an asteroid struck the Earth 66 million years ago.

How Tyrannosaurus was discovered and named

The first good skeleton was dug up in Montana in 1902 by the fossil hunter Barnum Brown, and in 1905 Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History named it Tyrannosaurus rex, the tyrant lizard king. The most famous single specimen, known as Sue, was found in South Dakota in 1990 by Sue Hendrickson and is now displayed at the Field Museum in Chicago. More than fifty partial skeletons are now known.

How Tyrannosaurus lived

Tyrannosaurus was built around its head: a skull about a metre and a half long, jaws packed with thick, serrated teeth, and a bite strong enough to crush bone. Its arms were short, with two fingers each, but its legs were long and powerful. Its eyes faced forward more than in most meat-eating dinosaurs, which would have helped it judge distance. It was almost certainly both a hunter and a scavenger, taking whatever food its keen sense of smell led it to.

Tyrannosaurus in Glowing Dinosaurs

Tyrannosaurus is entry N° 006 of the atlas, in the chapter I. Hunters. Its spread follows the same layout as every other dinosaur in the book: on the left, its name and how to say it, the epithet The Tyrant King, the three facts above, field notes and the six signs that show when it lived, how big it was, how dangerous it would have been, where it was found, what it ate and how it fought. On the right is the full glowing plate: tyrannosaurus in cyan and pink, bones glowing through a clear body, mouth open. Two more plates of Tyrannosaurus appear elsewhere in the book, and each can also be ordered as a signed work for the wall, printed on wood or acrylic under glass. In the same chapter you will also find Spinosaurus.

Why Tyrannosaurus glows

No dinosaur is known to have glowed, and the book says so plainly. The light is the artist’s way of seeing inside the animal: in the plate of Tyrannosaurus, bones, muscles and outline shine through a dark ground, so the shape of the skull, the length of the neck and tail and the build of the legs can be read at once, the way a fossil skeleton is read in a museum hall. The colours are chosen to separate bone from muscle and to make each animal recognisable across the whole atlas, while every fact printed beside the picture is checked against published research.

Questions about Tyrannosaurus

How big was Tyrannosaurus?

Tyrannosaurus measured about 12 m from nose to tail and weighed about 7 tonnes; the largest perhaps 9. The size panel on its spread in the book draws it beside a person, so its scale can be seen at a glance.

When did Tyrannosaurus live?

It lived in the Late Cretaceous, about 68 to 66 million years ago. On the timeline in the book, its place is marked between the first dinosaurs, about 230 million years ago, and the end of the age of dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.

Where have Tyrannosaurus fossils been found?

Its fossils have been found in Western United States and Canada. The map on its spread in the book marks the places where its bones were dug up.

What did Tyrannosaurus eat?

Its diet: carnivore. The diet sign in the book shows this with a simple symbol, so young readers can sort the plant-eaters from the meat-eaters.

What does the name Tyrannosaurus mean?

The name means “tyrant lizard king”. The full scientific name is Tyrannosaurus rex, Osborn 1905: the genus, the species and the scientist who named it, with the year. It is pronounced tie-RAN-oh-SORE-us.

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