Robin's Great Coloring Pages: T. rex and other Tyrannosaurs Facts and coloring pages

Welcome to my blog or welcome back to my free coloring pages blog!

I, Robin Lyman, drew almost all these coloring pages.

A few were drawn by my grand-nieces and grand-nephew.

Today's new drawing is of a Tyrannosaurus rex mother and her chick hunting near a river.

T. rex Mom hunting by a River with Chick

(new drawing) (Notice that the chick is feathered and the mother is not.)

This post has a random feel to it. I want to point out several facts on T. rex. Some of these are disputed "facts. Maybe some of these are not facts, just theories, or even just hypotheses. These different ideas sometimes completely contradict each other. I am not posting many names of different scientists. These "facts" are things I have heard over the years. It is up to you to decide which of these "facts" you think are true. I will still give you my opinion.

First of all, was T. rex a hunter or a predator?

PREDATOR OR SCAVENGER

Some paleontologists have proposed that because T. rex was so heavy it could not have been a predator. It is also noted that T. rex had a large olfactory lobe so, like a Turkey Vulture, it had an incredible sense of smell. T. rex could also smell food from miles away. Plus T. rex jaws could crush bone and bones were the last things other predators could eat.

Other paleontologists point out that T. rex had large eyes that were like 17 feet off the ground. It could have seen a long way in high definition plus its eyes faced forward for excellent depth perception like most modern predators like cats.

My opinion is that T. rex was both a predator and a scavenger. Most modern predators won't turn down a chance at a free meal. I once saw a golden eagle eating on roadkill in Millard County, Utah. (my home county) T. rex had powerful jaws that could eat bone but so do hyenas and hyenas are predators and scavengers. Some more recent finds of juvenile T. rex fossilized skeletons show that the juveniles were more lightly built and could have acted like the lionesses do in Africa... that is that the lionesses chase prey into an ambush where the bigger, more powerful male lions are waiting to make the kill.T.. rex's powerful bite would be very useful - not just for crushing bone but for a killing bite to the neck. Some paleontologists agree with my assessment.

THE TINY ARMS

Some paleontologists think that T. rex having serrated teeth helped the T. rex hold on to bits of unswallowed food and those bits were feeding ground for a deadly bacteria... like Komodo Dragons have. In fact, recently it was discovered that Komodo Dragons actually have venom. Maybe T. rex was poisonous and that is why it didn't need big and strong arms.

There is the thought that although T. rex's arms were small in comparison to the rest of its body, they could still bench press 500 lbs. This would have possibly helped T. rex stand up for laying down on its tummy.

There is also the thought that the tiny arms were just vestigial organs or remainders that were not really needed. This is like the appendix in humans. Vestigial organs are just leftovers from evolution. Another example is hip bones that don't do anything inside the back end of whales.

On this question, I don't have a definite answer. I do lean towards the arms helping the T. rex stand up.

T. REX SPEED

How fast could T. rex run. Most evaluations say NOT the 35 mph of the Jurassic Park movies. Other estimates are low at around 10 mph. The argument is that the animal was just too big to move fast. Like I mentioned before, the teen T. rex was more lightly built and definitely could run faster than the big adults. Some estimates put adult T. rex speed at closer to 20 mph.

I don't know enough about the math they use to figure this out so I'll pass on guessing on this one. However, I will note that muscle attachment scars on T. rex leg bones sure show very powerful muscles.

T. REX SIZE

There have been something like 20 specimens of T. rex found and the adults are all big. The indication is that the T. rex was around 40 feet long Some estimates of the length of the largest know T. rex says 40.7 feet or 12. 4 meters. long. Tyrannosaurus rex stood 13 feet or about 4 meters high.

One paleontologist thinks that the cartilage between the spine bones dries out before fossilization so dinosaurs were a bit longer than previously estimated. That would make T. rex - when it was alive back in the Cretaceous Period - to have been possibly 45 feet or 13.7 meters long. It appears that T. rex was around 9.3 tons and that is based on new computer-generated weight estimates. Previous estimates were 7.75 tons.

T. REX AGE

T. rex lived for around 30 years. This is shown by the growth rings that bones have. T. rex lived to around 30 years old. I don't think this is debatable. On the other hand, if a big T. rex fossil shows up with more growth rings we'll have to reevaluate this idea.

FEATHERS

This is an interesting one. Some Paleontologists think that T. rex and all the Tyrannosaurs definitely had feathers. Lythronax was a Tyrannosaur from here in Utah that definitely was covered in feathers. A Paleontologist from the University of Utah once told me that sooner or later we will discover a feathered T. rex... or a T. rex fossilized skeleton that shows that it had feathers.

A counterargument is maybe T. rex had feathers when it was younger. Being small it would need feathers to stay warm... that's the argument. But larger animals in warm climates don't need feathers or ever protofeathers. An African Elephant is a good example although we are talking fur or hair, not feathers. Elephants have only a little bit of hair. Africa is quite warm. It WAS warm in the late Cretaceous. Possibly volcanic eruptions were heating up the Earth and actually killing off many species of dinosaurs and the meteorite just finished them off.

Of course, another argument is that T. rex never had feathers, but that is kind of contradicted by Lythronax and other feathered Tyrannosaurs like Yutyrannus from China.

T. REX VS TRICERATOPS

There is an argument that in a T. rex vs Triceratops fight the T. rex would have always won. The counterargument is that Triceratops had broom handle-sized brow horns and a joint on its neck - where the head connected to the neck - that was like a ball joint and made it possible for a Triceratops to wield its brow horns like a pair of swords. Triceratops bones HAVE been found in what is thought to be T. rex coprolite or fossilized droppings. But since modern predators tend to prey on the young, the old, and the sick of their prey species... T. rex poop having Triceratops bone does NOT prove anything other than that T. rex ate Triceratops.

T. REX COLORING

T. rex might of had a mottled pattern. It might have been striped or spotted. It may have had a pattern like a modern reptile... say, a blood python. It is quite possible that it would have a pattern to its scales or feathers or protofeathers. By the way, protofeathers are less evolved feathers that kind of looks like hair or fur. I think it is unlikely that Tyrannosaurs were boring in color like all gray. But with those big eyes maybe it saw well at night and hunted in the dark so dark gray would have been a good coloring maybe.

T.REX PARENTAL CARE and LIVING SOLITARY OR WITH MATE OR IN PACKS

T. rex parents almost certainly cared for their young. The Theropod eggs and babies found in Portugal show that baby T. rex was probably way too helpless to care for itself. There is even the thought that like modern crocodiles, T. rex may have carried their babies in their mouths for safety.

The evidence from Sue the T. rex shows that Tyrannosaurs lived in packs or perhaps just with a mate. Sue had a healed once broken leg that had healed and she would have needed to be fed to give that leg time to heal. Groups of Tyrannosaurs like Albertosaurus have been found in Canada that appeared to have died together and that seems to indicate that they lived and hunted together. At least I think so, but some Paleontologists disagree. Those paleontologists say that dying together doesn't prove living together. But large Theropods have been found in groups in South America too (Giganotosaurus)/

T. REX EVOLUTION

Recent finds in China have shown that Tyrannosaurs first appeared long before was originally thought. Procetatosaurus was the very first early Tyrannosaur as far as we know. It shows up in the fossil record at 166 million years ago. By the way, it was definitely feathered.

T REX EXTINCTION

This drawing shows a volcano leaking lava and sending clouds of ash into the air. It isn't smoke that shots out of volcanos. It is either lava or ash and sometimes frozen lava... AKA volcanic rocks. One of my 7th-grade science students came up with that term, frozen lava. It is perfect.

T. rex lived at the end of the Cretaceous Period and volcanoes were heating up for many years. Some evidence shows that the number of species was dwindling. Then the meteorite hit what is now the Yucatan Penninsula. . . and wiped the large dinosaurs out. It appears that T. rex lived to the very end of the Cretaceous. There is some argument that during the 3 million years or so of T. rex living on Earth... that there were actually three species or at least subspecies of Tyrannosaurus rex. But whatever species or subspecies of T. rex that were alive at the end of the Cretaceous were wiped out by the blast... or the nuclear winter that followed the impact.

NOTE: This drawing, in printable form, is found by clicking on the button labeled "Paleontology" and scrolling down to the bottom of the Mesozoic part of the list. Below this last paragraph are some drawings from older posts relating to other Tyrannosaurs that were mentioned in this post. There are also a few drawings of T. rex and other Tyrannosaurs that preceded T. rex. There are a lot of coloring pages I have drawn of T. rex and you can see what I drew and print it by looking through the Paleontology list of drawings in the Mesozoic section. To read previous posts try googling my blog's address: gr8coloringpages.blogspot.com... then add: T. rex or Tyrannosaurus or Tyrannosaurus rex.