Tyrannosaurus rex
The last and largest tyrannosaur, with the strongest bite of any land animal known.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2 million years
- Known to
- ± 1 million years
- Era
- Cretaceous, Mesozoic
Tyrannosaurus rex lives in western North America for the final two million years of the Cretaceous, reaching around twelve metres and eight tonnes. Its bite force, estimated at over 30,000 newtons, is high enough to crush bone, and the shattered bone in its coprolites confirms it did. It has binocular vision, a huge olfactory bulb, and grew explosively through its teenage years. Whether it was primarily a hunter or a scavenger was argued for years; the healed bite marks it left on living prey settled it as both, like most large carnivores.