T. Rex had lips? A new study suggests yes
According to a recent study, T. rex and other theropod dinosaurs may have had lips, which contradicts the popular belief that they had teeth jutting out of their mouths. For a long time, both paleontologists and paleoartists have debated whether these carnivorous dinosaurs had lips. Reconstructions by scientists in the 1920s and ’30s showed them with flesh over their teeth, but popular media, such as the 1993 movie Jurassic Park, popularized dinos with large, prominent teeth and no lips. What further research suggests To investigate this further, Thomas Cullen, a paleobiologist at Auburn University, and his colleagues analyzed the relationship between skull length and tooth size of living reptiles, including Komodo dragons, and several theropod dinosaurs such as the Velociraptor and T. rex . They found that their teeth were not too big or too long for their skulls, similar to living lizards, and thus didn’t have to stick out of their mouths. The researchers also compared the enam...