Drilling Into 66-Million-Year-Old <em>T. Rex</em> Teeth Reveals a Human-Like Body Temperature
Learn how more than a decade of lab work persuaded a museum to part with precious fossils, allowing researchers to take T. rex ’s temperature for the first time.
After years of meticulous laboratory work, a museum finally granted researchers access to a Tyrannosaurus rex tooth, enabling them to determine the dinosaur's body temperature for the first time. Luis Chiappe, the curator of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s Dinosaur Institute, weighed the significance of extracting a portion of two teeth from a young adult named Thomas.
The team spent over a decade perfecting their technique to minimize the amount of material needed, ultimately sacrificing only 10 percent of the teeth to learn about T. rex's body temperature. The study, published in Science Advances, reveals that the dinosaur's body temperature averaged around 97 degrees Fahrenheit, which is remarkably close to the human body temperature of around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
This research adds evidence that T. rex could produce its own body heat, suggesting that it could maintain activity during hunting or scavenging and potentially inhabit colder regions of North America during the Cretaceous Period. The team measured the dinosaur's body temperature by drilling enamel from the teeth and dissolving the powder in acid, releasing carbon dioxide gas.
This gas was then analyzed using a mass spectrometer, which measured the chemical signature of bonds between heavier forms of carbon and oxygen. The cooler the temperature, the more of these bonds formed, allowing researchers to estimate the animal's body temperature when its teeth grew. Enamel is particularly resistant to chemical changes, preserving a temperature record for millions of years.
To optimize their analysis, the researchers pressurized the gas, creating a denser stream that could measure smaller samples. Comparing T. rex's body temperature with that of five crocodilian teeth from Montana's Hell Creek Formation, the team found that the dinosaur's temperature was approximately nine degrees warmer. By considering fossil freshwater shells and computer models of ancient climate conditions, the researchers estimated that T. rex lived in environments with temperatures below those of surrounding water and air.
These findings suggest that T. rex could have inhabited a wide range of habitats across North America, even during the coldest seasons. The study's lead author, Randy Flores, emphasizes the remarkable lack of knowledge about this iconic dinosaur, highlighting the significance of this new discovery in understanding T. rex's lifestyle and habitat.
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