Posted on 07/31/2013 1:34:41 AM PDT by imardmd1
Was Tyrannosaurus rex a predator or scavenger? The question has been a point of controversy in the scientific community for more than a century.
"You see 'Jurassic Park,' and you see T. rex as this massive hunter and killer, as incredibly vicious. But scientists have argued for 100 years that he was too big and too slow to hunt prey and that he was probably a scavenger, an animal that feeds only on dead things," University of Kansas paleontologist David Burnham said.
Burnham and researcher Robert DePalma got what Burnham described as his "lucky break" when they found the fossil of a duckbill dinosaur's tail with a tooth in it.
"The features of the tooth are like fingerprints, and we were able to identify it as T. rex," he said.
They took the fossil to be analyzed at the University of Kansas and for a CT scan at the local hospital, where the doctor told them, "It's too late for your patient."
But Burnham was thrilled at what the fossilized bones told him about the life of the duckbill.
"We were giddy like schoolkids," he said. "This now returns T. rex as a predator. So the monsters that we see in dinosaurs are real. They did go chasing after things, kill them and eat them. They actively pursued live prey."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Several years ago, Dr. Jobe Martin, professor of dentistry at Baylor University, studied the T. Rex teeth, and concluded that this dinosaur could not be a carnivore for the very reason that its tooth imbedment in the jaw was far too structurally weak to sustain the stresses generated in ripping live flesh and bone apart.
He further suggested that the sharp tooth blades were perfectly formed for stripping leaves and fruit, vegetative matter that would yield to the shallow retentive placement in the T. Rex's jawbone without destroying it.
My thought is that this is exactly what these observers have found! The T. Rex's tooth was broken off in what might have been a fight over foodstuff with the duckbill competitor.
In any case, the two investigators have allowed their confidence in their logic to override the lack of certainty of how this damage to the T. Rex happened. That is, they were not there, they did not observe the habits of dinosaur, their suppositions are merely that, and their conclusions are not based on the construction of the dinosaur's food chain and delivery system.
The Bible, which says that such animals (and mankind) at that time lived entirely on herbs, is not yet proven wrong by these investigators. They are overconfident of their deductions which are based on non-scientific presuppositions.
Cheers for Dr. Jobe Martin, of Rockwall, Texas, formerly a successful practicing and teaching dentist; now the voice of Biblical Discipleship Ministries, and author of "The Evolution of a Creationist", as well as many other resources for confronting evolutionary thought with fact.
I plead self defense on behalf of T-Rex!
"But Burnham was thrilled at what the fossilized bones told him about the life of the duckbill."
Here is another creationist, devising his fairy tale out of a fossilized bone with a tooth jammed in it, and pretends this is a dinosaur speaking to him through the formed rock.
This is real evolutionary science? Hmmm.
I'll take my Bible.
Don't fossil with me, under a coolibah tree!
You sure that's what you meant to say?
If you’re just waiting while your billy boils, does Australia have duckbill dinosaur bones, or does it just have a duckbilled (mammal) platypus (which is a real challenge to the Darwinian theorist)?
lol
I am unsure if we have any large lizard fossils - I know we have massive kangaroo and wombat fossils!
Great comment and the first I ever heard about this controversy.
(Speaking on the one hand as the author of "The Raman and Infrared Spectra of Pure and Chemically-substituted Vitreous Silica", Ph. D. Thesis, 1973 as well as retired research scientist; and on the other hand as a regenerated believer-disciple of The Christ, and discipler of those seeking to know and serve Him)
(Speaking on the one hand as a numbskull and on the other as a lame dead dog granted a seat at the King's table on someone else's account)
I'd be terrified of a massive kangaroo! The regular-sized ones are awesome and remarkable in their own accomplishments --
The real question is was he singing while he was waiting. If not then he can go waltzing away.
I agree that they are drawing a lot of conclusions from very little evidence, which could quite easily be validly interpreted in other ways. So they found a tooth in a fossilised bone. So what? That doesnt mean the animal was still alive when it got bit. I chipped a tooth biting a ballpoint but that doesnt mean my bic was alive.
Oh you guys :)
Implicit in the evidence, my FRiend, and inferred in the interpretation. You have two kinds of creationists: one the evolutionary creationist, and the other the Biblical kind. How would you interpret the motives and sequences of an automobile collision, an unspecified few days after the wrecks and debris are long gone, and having only the skid marks on the pavement as your guide?
That's kind of like what these paleontologists were doing, in their imaginative reconstruction, with the reporter labelling their amplified theorizing as fact.
But I do kind of like their discovery and description of the evidence of the "skid mark"/fossil, leaving out Historical Geology (Lamarckian) and just sticking with fact now observable. (I'm not sure I answered your question --)
It seems to me that each new generation of scientists just have to have something new to say and do about dinosaurs - methinks to get grant money for studies and field work.
My personal observation is that today's animal kingdom is comprised of herbivores, carnivores and combinations of the two. It seems logical that the dinosaur realm contained the same mix. Likewise, the appearance of the teeth, sharp vs molar-like advocates for the two groups. Look at cows' teeth and then go look at a Bengal Tiger's teeth.
And, yes, I know there is a difference between warm and cold blooded here, but I believe one can find the same support in today's reptilian world, too.
I’m confident that T- Rex was an opportunist that wouldn’t pass up a free meal. A 14,000 lb lizard is going to be a perpetually hungry beast after all. I’m equally sure he was perfectly capable of running down and killing smaller dinosaurs and eating them. I’m also confident that there are many explanations for a tooth found lodged in another dinosaurs tail but the most reasonable one is that the T-Rex cased own, attacked, and then failed to secure his meal-as is common in the world of predator and prey today.
I dunno. Maybe he just waltzed in the shade with the troopers, one, two, three. Was it a rope dance? All we’ve got here is the fossilized jumbuck — let’s just stick to the facts, ma’am —
Without starting a fight, it just seems that you have great faith, not facts nor observation. Who says either was eating anything. Maybe they were just playing, like puppies, and (his, her?) tooth fell out in the fracas.
Let me ask you:
Do T. Rex dinosaur fossils hsve teeth or bones in their fossilized digestive tracts? Or is TR just hypothetically, and universally assumed, to be a carnivore? Or is it just unproven smoke and mirrors?
My suggestion: In God we trust; everybody else please bring data.
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