Perhaps the most easily discernable dinosaur of all time is the Tyrannosaurus Rex, made infamous by Hollywood films such as Jurassic Park. But despite what you might’ve seen on the silver screen, modern science is proving that T. Rex probably looked a lot different than initially thought.
Many of the world’s unearthed dinosaur fossils tell the story of a bird-like appearance in dinosaurs, and these feathery qualities didn’t exclude T. Rex. In fact, dinosaurs may not have just looked bird birds, but probably sounded like them too.
T. Rex, just like the myriad of other dinosaurs in history books, is incredibly misunderstood, and this can be attributed to the fact that we as humans have never directly observed one in the wild. These animals have been dead for millions of years, which makes understanding their story that much more challenging.
Paleontologists study the animals’ remains to understand their physical structure better and deduce lifestyle characteristics based on those qualities, and a more recent fossil discovery is now bringing T. Rex’s descendants into the light. By filling this critical gap in the fossil record, we can develop a better idea of how the dinosaurs evolved and learn more about their lifestyle, among other things.
As paleontology-centric technology advances, we expect that dinosaur discoveries will only become more specific, enabling scientists to produce accurate renderings of what these dinosaurs actually looked like back in the day.
