Scientists May Finally Know Why T. Rex Had Such Tiny Arms - ScienceAlert
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You probably wouldn't say it to its face, but the famously fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex has long been the butt of tiny arm jokes. But new research could explain their hilarious hands, though it offers no guarantee it will stifle the giggles. The study suggests that as their prey grew bigger, tyrannosaurs and other large predatory dinosaurs evolved to use their powerful jaws as their primary weapon. As such, their arms shrank over time with disuse, until they became the funny little chicken wings we laugh at today. This research is far from the first to suggest that these puny limbs were vestigial, but it goes further by linking the shrinking arms with the evolution of huge, powerful heads and jaws. "We sought to understand what was driving this change and found a strong relationship between short arms and large, powerfully built heads," says Charlie Roger Scherer, vertebrate paleontologist at University College London. "The head took over from the arms as the method of attack. It's a case of 'use it or lose it' – the arms are no longer useful and reduce in size over time. "As for what external forces might be driving these changes, the team suggests that it's because T.
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