Step one: Remove head.
By Clay Dillow Posted 10.25.2012 at 5:31 pm 5 Comments

How To Eat A Triceratops Nate Carroll via Nature

When it came to dining on Triceratops, the Tyrannosaurus had a problem. That nutrient-rich meat in the Triceratops neck was a Late Cretaceous delicacy, but with that huge bone and keratin frill in the way it was notoriously difficult to get to. Now, paleontologists at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., have developed a new theory for how the T. Rex devoured the best part of his meal: beheading. According to an analysis of bit marks and scarring on the recovered bones of triceratops, T. Rex devised a method of decapitating its fallen prey to expose that succulent neck meat. The best part of all this, of course, are the sketches outlining exactly how this happened (one of which you can see above). Click through to Nature to see, frame by frame, how pencil-sketch-T-Rex made Triceratops into a meal.

[Nature]

5 Comments

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heresauce
10/26/12 at 3:28 am

That's how I have always done it.

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haywall
10/26/12 at 9:28 am

I find it hard to believe that they couldn't just get their snout around the shield...Or they could just leave it and eat the rest of it. I'm pretty sure one T-rex could not eat an entire Triceratops anyway.

Also a lack of editing once again: "According to an analysis of bit marks" - bite marks ***

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geekdome
10/26/12 at 10:25 am

I thought the Triceratops had been determined to actually be a young Torosaurus, so there would in fact not be such a thing as a Triceratops anymore. Am I wrong?

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GMarsack
10/26/12 at 11:38 am

Actually, the illustration above demonstrates how similar dinosaurs are to birds. In the picture above, we observe the mating ritual of the common Triceratops and a T-Rex.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0907/chickensmating

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In space, no one can hear a tree fall in the forest.

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xznoguy
10/30/12 at 4:04 am

ok t-rex is tough, but why pull the strongest part of your dinner apart w/ brute force when you have a mouth full of knives? Is he obsessive about having everything just so? Not likely. He didn't pull the head off. He rotated the frill out of the way and gnawed like a bear. I wonder if he skinned it first though, Hawks, owls, & vultures will, so will bears and mountain lions. Skins carry the scent glands (yuk don't eat that stuff, stick w/ guts). T-rex had a good nose so I bet he did.



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