You might think that there was a tyrannosaurus rex here and there on Earth during the age of the dinosaurs, just as you don’t bump into an elephant everywhere. But that is not true. There were many more giant dinosaurs than he thought.
It is very difficult to estimate how many dinosaurs there are, but paleontologist Charles Marshall and his team are trying to find out. It was written in Science this week that there are about 20,000 adult T. rex living in North America at any given time.
This means that about 2.5 billion Tyrannosaurus rex lived and died in the 2.5 million years that roamed Earth, somewhere between 70 and 66 million years ago. Based on literature, excavations, and peer opinions, Marshall and his team concluded that T. Rex reaches sexual maturity after about 15.5 years. It has a lifespan of up to 30 years and weighs 5,200 kg, up to a maximum of 7,000 kg.
127,000 generations
Each generation lived an average of 19 years and there was one dinosaur per 100 square kilometers. If you considered that Tyrannosaurus rex covered a geographical area of 2.3 million square kilometers and that the species had survived for about 2.5 million years, you would end up with twenty continuous Tyrannosaurus rex. There were 127,000 generations, the equivalent of 2.5 billion T-Rex.
However, relatively few bones have been recovered. Only 100 specimens have been discovered so far, often on the basis of just one bone. “There are about 32 relatively well-preserved adult T. rex species in public museums today,” Marshall said. “Of all the adult specimens that ever lived, we recovered one in 80 million.”
Bron (nene): Informed daily