The T. Rex Might Have Actually Been 70% Bigger Than Expected

It can be easy to think that we know everything there is to know about the world. After all, we’ve had millions of years to learn all about what walked the planet before us, and science has come a long way in recent years. The twist? Researchers are learning new things about Earth every year - including what once called this planet its home.

Plenty of us can agree that the Tyrannosaurus rex might be the most famous dinosaur of them all, thanks to their incredible size and strength. What if they’re even larger than we ever imagined? That’s what one study wants to find out, as the T. rex might have actually been 70% bigger than expected.

Scotty is currently the largest recorded T. rex

For years, Sue was thought to be the heaviest T. rex we have ever found. That was until Scotty came along and blew the record out of the water. It’s believed that Scotty lived around 65 million years ago and is estimated to have weighed 19,555 pounds in their lifetime. That’s the equivalent to 6.5 VW Beetles, but what if T. rexes actually weighed a lot more when they walked the Earth millions of years ago? That might be the case, as paleontologists working at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa now think they might have actually tipped the scales closer to 33,000 pounds. 

New research shows the T. rex might have been 70% bigger

If the team’s estimate is right, it means that the T. rex might have actually been 70% bigger than expected. Still, they didn’t pull that number from nowhere. A mere 32 adult T. rex fossils have been found throughout history, which might sound like a lot, but is a drop in the ocean of the 2.5 billion T. rexes that are thought to have once lived on Earth. That means they only have a small number of samples to work with when studying what the T. rex was like. From the samples, they created population numbers and average life spans.

The models can only be used as estimates for now

Just because the team had access to a handful of samples didn’t mean that things would be easy when figuring out the true size of a T. rex. As of now, they have no idea if there was a difference in size between males and females in the species. If there was, the model the team created stated T. rexes could have weighed as much as 53,000 pounds. While it would have been a huge leap in the field, the team quickly dismissed the idea, as they believe we would have found much larger fossils by now if that were the case. Instead, they used the expected growth of T. rexes to estimate the true size, ultimately landing on 33,000 pounds. Sadly, until more fossils are found, this is only an estimate. 

Having so few fossils makes it tough to learn about the T. rex

One of the things that makes learning about dinosaurs so difficult is the fact there are so few fossils available. How can 2.5 billion creatures just disappear? Time hasn’t been kind to their remains, with many being destroyed by the changing lands or lost several hundred feet underground. Still, as fossils continue to be found across the globe and the sample size gets larger, it means we can get more steps closer to having a definitive answer.

The T. rex might have actually been 70% bigger than expected, but until we have more fossils, there is no way of knowing if this could be the case. For now, researchers are still in awe of what could prove to be the true scale of the once-reigning dino.