Top-predator dinosaurs of the Cretaceous may have traded big eyes for a bigger bite
It was an unlucky dinosaur that came face-to-face with the beady-eyed glare and giant, toothy grimace of the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex. But the seven-metric-ton predator, which hunted through the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, was not the only beast with these features: other large predatory dinosaurs also gazed through small eyes in their large head. A new study suggests that those squinty eyes could be a trade-off for powerful chomping jaws.
The eye socket’s shape is telling, too. Unlike modern animals’ round eye sockets, in large carnivorous dinosaurs, “we see all these strange eye socket orbital shapes,” Lautenschlager says. These can range from cavities that look like keyholes to compressed circles to wedge shapes, which all fit smaller eyes than could same-sized round sockets.
Lautenschlager also noted in the study that the shape of a T. rex’s eye socket changed over its life span, starting out rounder and taking up more of its skull in youth. Much like infant animals today, a baby T. rex would gaze up to a parent with big, round eyes. “I think that’s a general theme throughout the animal kingdom,” Lautenschlager says. But as the young T. rex grew into an adolescent and eventually reigned supreme in its ecosystem, the animal’s eye sockets became keyhole-shaped.
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