Prehistoric life
One of the greatest carnivores - though not the largest - ever to have walked the Earth, Tyrannosaurus rex (or T-rex) ruled North America during the late Cretaceous period, some 68-65 million years ago. The massive skull of this mighty theropod dinosaur measured 1.5 metres and was balanced by a long heavy tail. The jaw, filled with huge, saw-edged teeth could deliver a devastating bite. Top predator or mighty scavenger, the 'tyrant lizard king' was without doubt a dinosaur to be feared. Thirty specimens have been recovered, some of which (such as those named Sue, Stan and the juvenile Jane!) are almost complete.
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How fast was T-rex?
Ostriches get on the treadmill to help work out how fast T-rex could run.
John Hutchinson studies ostriches to work out how fast T-rex were able to run.
Dinosaur vision
Laser technology give clues to how T-rex and Triceratops would have seen the world.
Kent Stevens uses lasers to study animal vision and finds out how well T-rex and Triceratops could see.
T-rex the predator
Fossil forensics prove that T-rex attacked, rather than scavenged, Triceratops.
John Happ has studied Triceratops bones and found evidence of predatory attacks by Tyrannosaurus rex.
Dino whodunnit
Fossil forensics prove T-rex was the culprit that chomped chunks from a Triceratops.
Dr Greg Erikson studies bite marks on the pelvis of a Triceratops. He deduces that they were made by Tyrannosaurus rex. But did it kill it or scavenge?
Fleshing out T-rex bones
What do we really know about T-rex? Bill Oddie gets under its skin.
What do we really know about T-rex? Bill Oddie gets under its skin.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Discover the other animals and plants that lived during the following geological time periods.
Cretaceous period
Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinctionTake a trip through the natural world with our themed collections of video clips from the natural history archive.
African Wildlife
Sir David Attenborough's Africa series took over four years to make and has brought us eye to eye with the continent's incredible wildlife in spectacular ways.
Deadly dinosaurs
More dinosaurs have been discovered in the last two decades than the past 200 years.
Carnivorous
Egg layer
Predator
Adapted to running
Scavenger