Re-Thinking the Fearsome Tyrannosaurs

University of Arkansas/University Relations

Celina Suarez

In the June episode of Short Talks From the Hill, a science and research podcast, Celina Suarez discusses recent findings on the social habits of fearsome tyrannosaurs. It turns out that they may have been more social than scientists realized, and not the solitary predators of popular imagination.

Suarez is an associate professor of geosciences in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Her research combines paleontology, sedimentology and geochemistry in an effort to understand both the geology and biology and Earth's distant past. She was part of a team of researchers examining tyrannosaur fossils from a Utah quarry.

"One of the other really interesting things is they started to find a large variety in sizes, everything from … a baby probably that was around four years old, to full-size adults, which definitely got the imagination going," Suarez said.

Analysis performed at the U of A's Trace Element and Radiogenic Isotope Laboratory, or TRAIL, indicated that the fossils were likely of animals that died in the same place and time, probably in a flood. The finding is the most definitive to date indicating tyrannosaurs lived as groups.

"We know they were probably living together, and they probably all died together and were buried and fossilized together because they have this similar trace element concentration," Suarez said. "Whether or not they were behaving as like what you would imagine as a pack, like a wolf pack for example, it's hard to say."

To listen to Suarez discuss her research, go to ResearchFrontiers.uark.edu, the home of research news at the University of Arkansas, or visit the "On Air" and "Programs" link at KUAF.com.

Short Talks From the Hill highlights research and scholarly work at the University of Arkansas. Each segment features a university researcher discussing his or her work. Previous podcasts can be found under the 'Short Talks From the Hill' link at ResearchFrontiers.uark.edu.

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