btn script t rex
JACK: Are you enjoying your tea, Rex?
REX: Roar.
JACK: Do you need a hand?
REX: Roar.
JACK: Okay spill, dish the dirt. I've heard the rumours. Everyone's talking about you, you're everywhere or at least you were.
REX: Roar.
Yep, our dear friend Rex here has been making headlines lately. So, it's time to spill the tea on the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Let's start with the stuff we already know. The name, Tyrannosaurus, comes from the Greek words for terrible lizard and Rex means king.
JACK: Oh, I didn't realise I was amongst royalty.
They lived in the late cretaceous period on this island, wait not this island. This island called Laramidia, the ancient continent which eventually became part of what we now know as North America. T-Rex's were carnivorous predators, so they loved to eat meat. They could grow up to 12-metres tall, had tiny arms, weighed up to 8000 kilograms and made this sound, well at least we think they did. T-Rex's are part of a group of dinosaurs called theropods. Which included some other famous faces like Allosaurus, Velociraptor and Megalosaurus. While theropods were reptiles, they had some bird-like characteristics. Like hollow bones, long limbs with hinged ankle joints and clawed three fingered hands. Just like a...
JACK: Chicken. They're calling you chicken.
Yep, scientists reckon that over millions of years, some theropods evolved to be more and more bird like. If that doesn't ruffle your feathers, scientists have also found fossils showing that many dinosaurs had feathers. Which means they were a little less like this and a little more like this, oh wait that's Big Bird, that's better.
JACK: Okay let's get to the juicy stuff.
We've just learnt some new things about T-Rex's. Like did you know there were more than 2.5 billion of them. Alright, calm down, that 2.5 billion is the estimated total over a couple of million years. There were probably more like 20,000 running around at any one time or should I say, slowly moving around. Yep, turns out T-Rex's aren't as fast as we once thought. Researchers in the Netherlands have found their walking speed was probably about 4.6 kays per hour, which is a casual stroll for us humans.
JACK: Come on. Keep up.
They figured it out by recreating the movements of its tail, which would have swung in time with their steps.
PASHA VAN BIJLERT, DUTCH NATURALIS MUSEUM: You just have to look at the tail to understand how important it is for its walking. It's more than half of its length. The walking of dinosaurs was unique because of its tail. With every step it would slightly bounce up and down.
So while maybe they weren't the fastest, I still wouldn't want to encounter one, well a real one anyway. Because another study has found they were able to bite through bone by keeping their lower jaw steady, just like an alligator does when they bite through bone.
JACK: Oh, well we're out of tea.
Which is good because I think that's all the tea I had to spill, for now, anyway.