The impression of this artist shows what a youthful tyrannosaurus could look like.
Julius Csotonyi
Tyrannosaurus dinosaurs roamed the earth long before baby photos were a thing, so all we have is the fossil record to find out what they looked like in their earliest days. It was a difficult quest, but the discovery of ‘the first known fossils of tyrannosaurus embryos’ helps to create a picture.
A research team led by Edinburgh paleontologist Greg Funston studied a small jaw and claw fragment belonging to cousins of the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. The team made 3D scans to analyze the fossils and determined that the dinosaurs would have been about 1 meter long when they hatched.
The team published its findings in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences on Monday. “Tyrannosaurid eggs and embryos remain elusive, and young specimens – though known – are rare,” the newspaper said. Funston suggested that tyrannosaurs could lay eggs with soft shells that could not be easily preserved as fossils.
While no eggs have yet been found, the fossil fragments are telling. The team’s work suggests that the eggs were about 43 inches long and that the pups would have been the size of the Border Collie dogs when they took their first steps.
This petrified jaw fragment comes from a baby tyrannosaurus.
Greg Funston
Tyrannosaurs were most popular in dinosaurs, thanks to their large size, small arms and predatory nature. They can grow up to 12 feet long, which makes them look pretty wild as a beautiful baby-sized baby.
“It may seem huge, but remember that they would have been curled up inside an egg,” Funston wrote in a blog post.
“These bones are the first window into the early lives of tyrannosaurs and they teach us about the size and appearance of tyrannosaurs,” Funston said in a statement Monday. “We now know that they would have been the largest hatcheries that ever came out of eggs, and that they would look strikingly like their parents – both good signs to find more material in the future.”