How Do You Eat a Triceratops? Start By Ripping the Head Off

scibri writes "Once a Tyrannosaurus took down a Triceratops, how did it go about eating it? By looking at the bite marks on Triceratops fossils, a group of paleontologists have pieced together the steps, and created an illustrated guide. Step one? Pull off the head."

Comments

Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like an afternoon on bath salts.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like my ex-wife's Modus operandi

Ah Yes! Triceratops ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the "gummy bear" of dinosaurs.

Step 4

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Step four: feast on the delicacies beneath the frill.

I am so making a T-shirt with these pictures and captions.

Re:Step 4

[gstoddart]

They're probably copyrighted, and you'd probably get sued.

But, yes, that would be an awesome T-shirt ... probably pretty popular among the paleontologists.

Re:Step 4

[cyberchondriac]

They forgot step 5, "profit".

Re:Step 4

[Bob the Super Hamste]

If I go onto a place like zazzle and have a one off one made up that is not put up for sale I don't think there will be a problem. If I decided that I wanted to sell copies using their images and captions then it would be a problem.

Re:Step 4

[gstoddart]

Just saying, the other dinosaurs are always all over stuff like that. ;-)

I think it would be an awesome t-shirt though, maybe the original authors would agree to using the images.

Re:Step 4

[avgjoe62]

I REALLY did not want the image of Barney eating Baby Bop planted in my head. I already suspected that purple monstrosity was perverted - this will just make me cringe even more every time I hear that sodding theme song...

Re:Step 4

[Bob the Super Hamste]

If I could get permission to use the images and captions I would pursue selling them as it seems a lot of people have a dark sense of humor much like mine and they probably would do fairly well.

Re:Step 4

[ackthpt]

They're probably copyrighted, and you'd probably get sued.

But, yes, that would be an awesome T-shirt ... probably pretty popular among the paleontologists.

They'll send around their lawyers, indistinguisable from T. Rex, which will rip your head off.

Really wondering if this was the case or the bite marks were the result of battle. Once you, as T. Rex, got around those horns and had a good grip, would you risk letting go? Seems more to me like T. Rex would have bull-dogged a Triceratops, attempt to break its neck or get it in a position of asphyxiation, unable to breath through a twisted windpipe.

But I'm just a software developer, what do I know.

Re:Step 4

[Urza9814]

Good luck getting them to print it...about two years ago I was trying to have shirts printed for a university club and I couldn't find a printer that would let us include the name of the university due to copyright fears. If they can find your image on Google, they're not gonna print it.

Re:Step 4

[Zordak]

Pedantic and all, but the name of your university is not copyrighted. It's too minimal. But there may be trademark issues.

Re:Step 4

[ackthpt]

I was leaning more towards "Step three: nibble on the soft flesh of Triceratops' face."

Step 5: T. Rex throws the carcass on a grill, pulls out a few brews and throws a BBQ party.

Re:Step 4

[RivenAleem]

Step 5 polish the skull and mount it on your spaceship wall.

Re:Step 4

[mcgrew]

Good luck getting them to print it

So print it yourself! A silkscreen is easy to construct. Anybody can print their own shirts.

Re:Step 4

[DarwinSurvivor]

FTFA:

they noted something important: none of the bones showed any signs of healing, indicating that the bites were inflicted on dead animals that were in the process of being eaten.

Re:Step 4

[camperdave]

So print it yourself! A silkscreen is easy to construct. Anybody can print their own shirts.

Oh this is so not true. You need wood to build a frame, and tools to cut the wood. Then you need "silk", but is it real silk, or a special kind of silk? Are there different thread counts? Which one do you need? I know, buy several and try them out. You'll need a staple gun or something to attach the silk to the frame. Next you'll need to some how print the images onto the silk. Is there a photographic process for that? Need the chemicals, oh and a digital projector. That will need to be done in a dark, well ventilated room. I hope you have one of those. Next, the paint. It will have to be some sort of washable fabric dye. Does the color you want exist? Do you have to blend them to get the right color. Fortunately these are monochrome pictures. If they had been color, then you'd want to do some sort of color separation. That would mean halftone-ing the image, and producing several silkscreen frames. Now you'll need some sort of squeegee. You'll also need some sort of smooth board you can put inside the tee-shirt so that you don't squeegee the image right through both the front and the back.

It would be far, far easier, and far, far cheaper to use those ink jet iron-on kits.

Re:Step 4

[mcgrew]

I've built silkscreens. No, you don't need real silk, a nylon scarf will do. If you're going from a photo you can cut the photo to lay out your pattern. Wikipedia probably has enough info for anyone to be able to make one; they're easy. It's not like building an Atlas rocket or anything, silkscreening is ancient and low-tech.

Which end of a hot dog do you bite first?

[mmell]

The end that's closer to your mouth!

Re:Which end of a hot dog do you bite first?

[ackthpt]

The end that's closer to your mouth!

Most predators I've seen go for the soft tissues, first. Liver, stomach, intestines, etc., muscle tissue usually eaten after it has "seasoned" a few days.

As they are looking at fossils I'm wondering how they are determining the order in which feeding took place. Perhaps T. Rex hung around such a large kill for days, feeding until it was sated or felt like getting something fresh.

One question

[AwesomeMcgee]

After tearing the head off, how much salt did the tyrannosaurus use to make it edible?

The Oatmeal is slacking

[boristdog]

The Oatmeal should have been all over this guide like...well, like a T-rex on a Triceratops.

Taking down a triceratops?

[camperdave]

"Once a Tyrannosaurus took down a Triceratops, how did it go about eating it?"

I thought T-Rex was downgraded from a hunter/killer to a carcass plundering carrion eater, like a buzzard. Besides, didn't these Triceratopses have soft underbellies and such? Seems to me that the neck and face bits would be the LAST to go, not the first.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Remus Shepherd]

The soft underbellies were mostly organs and guts -- nutritious but not meaty. The meatiest parts of the triceratops were the huge neck muscles.

It's not clear whether the T-Rex killed the triceratops himself, or found and ate already dead carcasses. But either way, the scientists have concluded from bite marks that this is how the feasting went.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe after getting to a Triceratops and scaring away whatever was eating it, this was a way to get at 'still good' parts that weren't accessible to smaller dinosaurs yet...

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Schmorgluck]

I thought T-Rex was downgraded from a hunter/killer to a carcass plundering carrion eater, like a buzzard.

Yeah, heard of that too. Something about their body structure being inappropriate for actual fighting. Their wee upper limbs, in particular.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[cyberchondriac]

Not necessarily, I think the pendulum has swung the other way again, more recently.. at least, some.
And there's this, about their bite force, which suggests (but doesn't prove) predation:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v382/n6593/abs/382706a0.html

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[lgw]

This has been debated by experts for over a century now. It's hard to get solid evidence about habits. The teeth of the T-Rex were strong enough to wrestle down live prey (to judge from bite strength, whihc can be determined from bite marks). Its seems likely it could run faster than its prey (to judge form biomechanics, but that doesn't speak to metabolism). T-rex certainly seems able to be a predator, whatever you want to read into that.

I just assume they were like modern lions: not shy about taking cariron, but willing and able to make thier own when the opportunity arose.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[thomasw_lrd]

I've always seen predators and scavengers start on the organy undersides. That's where most of the fats are, and also the parts that will rot the quickest. Seems like dinosaurs would need similar nutrition requirements to todays buzzards?

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Chris Burke]

Ah, but if the jaws are big enough then it doesn't need the arms (and there's some evidence that the jaws were powerful and teeth strong enough to be used for killing large prey). And one theory for why the arms are so small is to allow for such big jaws while staying balanced.

Of course a predator as big as T-Rex would have still eaten carrion -- or just stole fresh kills from other, smaller predators since that's one of the advantages of being big. Like their modern cousins, the eagles.

On a somewhat tangential note, those wee arms were a lot stronger than you might think. Tendon attachment marks on fossils suggest that T-Rex arms were extremely strong. One theory is that it used the arms to help it get upright, basically letting it do a small push-up to help get its weight under it.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[onyxruby]

That's the wonderful thing about science. It takes 'thought' and turns it upside down. Besides who are we puny humans to argue with a T-rex?

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Chuckstar]

I thought T-Rex was downgraded from a hunter/killer to a carcass plundering carrion eater, like a buzzard.

There's still debate on this subject, but IMHO there's really too much evidence to the contrary to believe that T.Rex was a scavenger specialist (although pretty much all predators will eat carrion when available). The most interesting evidence are fossil bones of T.Rex prey that have partially-healed tooth marks that could only have been made by T.Rex. This is evidence of an animal that survived a T.Rex attack long enough for bone to partially heal (months/years). That would be hard if T.Rex were only a carrion specialist.

There was always a lot of skepticism of the scavenger hypothesis. Just looking at T.Rex would tend to create skepticism. T.Rex is big, muscular, has incredibly strong jaws, lots and lots of sharp piercing teeth... definitely was the scariest thing around at the time. The biggest, scariest meat eater in any ecosystem is rarely a scavenger specialist.

Another problem with the scavenger specialization idea is that T.Rex would have had pretty good binocular vision. Very useful for a predator. Scavengers don't need it so much.

We still don't have good evidence about T.Rex's hunting style, though. I think one of the reasons the scavenger specialist idea has been so intriguing is that people had a hard time figuring out how T.Rex could take down something like Triceratops, given it's pretty tough defenses. Also, there is some evidence that T.Rex would not have been a fast runner, so how did it chase down some of the prey that seems like it would have been fast runners?

When they find the partially-healed T.Rex bite marks I mentioned above, however, they tend to be on the prey's back. This would be pretty standard for a failed take-down, even among today's predators. Was it in fact a fast runner catching up from behind? If so, how did it take down Triceratops, which would probably turn and defend itself. Perhaps T.Rex was an ambush hunter, like today's Komodo Dragons, coming out of large brush and attacking from the side. Maybe T.Rex was a social hunter and surrounded its prey. I like to imagine T.Rex could leap over Triceratops horns, get behind it, get a grip on it's back, and shake it to death... But I have NO evidence for that, it's just fun to imagine.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Grayhand]

That's Horner's BS theory. There is no part of a T-Rex to hint at it being a scavenger. His claim is that an excellent sense of smell means scavenger. Most scavengers are small not oversized. His turkey vulture example is a poor one. Their size means they can cover more territory to find food. T-Rexs weren't built as long distant runners, they were built to fight by anyone's standards. They were likely short distance sprinters as in ambush hunters. You don't ambush stalk carrion. If they attacked Triceratop's necks there was a good reason. Necks have major arteries so their teeth would be perfect for opening up arteries so the triceratops would bleed out. They've also been found to have the same pockets in their teeth as Komodo Dragons so bacteria would build up, also not a feature of pure carrion eaters. Once their prey is bitten they'd just have to follow until their prey was weak from infection and blood loss. Their size would keep away the actual scavengers.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[pkphilip]

The most interesting evidence are fossil bones of T.Rex prey that have partially-healed tooth marks that could only have been made by T.Rex.

How does one go about confirming that a specific mark on the vertebrae of an animal definitely came about because a T-Rex bit it? Couldn't it have been caused by a tree trunk falling on the animal or be caused by another animal other than a T-Rex? Even herbivorous animals fight with each other and can cause serious damage to each other.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[OhANameWhatName]

That would be hard if T.Rex were only a carrion specialist.

What if the dinosaur was asleep?

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Chris Burke]

What's funny about the turkey vulture comparison is that of (new world, at least) vultures, they're the only ones with a good sense of smell. I think it's a lot easier to find (non-avian) predators with excellent senses of smell.

The point about soaring explaining the size of vultures is a good one, though size can still be use. Condors can more easily eat large and thick-hided carrion than the smaller vultures, and this could apply to t-rex. Also just like its size could scare off scavengers, it could also scare predators off a kill for an easy meal - though its doubtless that happened in any case. In vultures its the black vulture who dominates at kills, but there its about their superior dexterity on the ground.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[camperdave]

How does one go about confirming that a specific mark on the vertebrae of an animal definitely came about because a T-Rex bit it?

Cross sectional shape of the mark. Spacing and placement relative to other marks. etc. A falling tree isn't going to hit the animal and put a series of triangular puncture marks on opposite sides of the vertebrae, for example.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[RivenAleem]

Perhaps T.Rex was an ambush hunter, like today's Komodo Dragons, coming out of large brush and attacking from the side. Maybe T.Rex was a social hunter and surrounded its prey.

Clever Girl...

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Chuckstar]

Asleep is not dead. If T.Rex was a scavenger-specialist, it would know the difference between a dead animal and a sleeping animal that might get up and fight back.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Chuckstar]

Trees are unlikely to leave grooves in bone that would be mistaken for T.Rex teeth marks. In fact, being hit with a tree tends to break bones, not scrape long puncture marks. We're talking about vertebra with 3-5 inch long grooves, which are pretty much perfect matches for the shape and spacing of T.Rex teeth. In the case of intra-species fighting, these herbivores simply don't have teeth or horns which could match such grooves.

I guess it's possible there was another big predator out there at the time, but it would have to be about as tall as T.Rex, have similar-shaped teeth and have similar jaw strength in order to match the marks. So if it wasn't T.Rex, it would have to be something quite similar. If that were the case, then you'd have to be willing to conclude that T.Rex was a scavenger, but there was an unidentified therapod very similar to T.Rex that was a true predator. Why would that be any more convincing than just believing that this huge land-carnivore might have hunted live prey?

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Chuckstar]

Besides, didn't these Triceratopses have soft underbellies and such? Seems to me that the neck and face bits would be the LAST to go, not the first.

I kind of agree with you here. It looks to me like all they showed was what the T.Rex does when it's time to go after the head/neck region. It does not necessarily show that it ate those parts first. However, I haven't seen the detailed study. It is possible that there is evidence that the head was first to be consumed. Maybe T.Rex sometimes abandoned the prey after eating the head/neck region. In such cases, T.Rex marks would only show up on the head/neck, while other scavengers' teeth would show up in the rest of the skeleton.

Or maybe there's other reason to believe they'd go for the head first. Maybe there's a lot of fat on the neck. Many large predators go for fat deposits first (calories), then organs (calories and micro-nutrients), then muscle (less-caloric macro-nutrients like protein).

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[Chuckstar]

1. Computer modeling points to T.Rex being slower than some of the animals we know it preyed on. Of course, the models could easily be wrong.

2. Chomp-and-wait against Triceratops only works if you're a stalker (T.Rex was too big for that) or an ambush predator (which was one of the options I suggested). You're probably not going to run down a Triceratops. It wouldn't run away. It would turn and defend itself. That's why I lean towards ambush predator. I just don't know enough about the vegetation to know if there was anywhere a T.Rex could really hide. Komodo Dragons get away with ambushing because there are bushes in its habitat big enough to hide in (and in spite of it's bulk, a Komodo is pretty low to the ground... easier to hide that way). I keep trying to figure out how T.Rex is gonna hide in some bushes. But if the bushes are big enough...

But another option against Triceratops is that T.Rex had some trick to avoiding those horns. That's why I suggested either social hunting or some kind of leaping move to get away from the horns. Even if it couldn't leap clear over Triceratops, maybe T.Rex could fake one direction, get Triceratops to commit, then quickly leap to the the other side, getting behind the crest and into position to bite Triceratops back. I'm just throwing ideas out at this point, though.

Re:Taking down a triceratops?

[camperdave]

Or maybe there's other reason to believe they'd go for the head first. Maybe there's a lot of fat on the neck. Many large predators go for fat deposits first (calories), then organs (calories and micro-nutrients), then muscle (less-caloric macro-nutrients like protein).

The only reason I can see for ripping the head off first is that maybe the body was needed intact to act as an anchor or a counterweight. Otherwise it would be far, far simpler to consume the organs and body muscles first, then concentrate on the harder to reach bits. Or maybe it was the second T-Rex that ripped the head off after the first one had gorged itself on steaks and kidneys.

Slashdot title of the year award goes to

[Intrepid imaginaut]

This story.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And what if the T-Rex is left-handed? How is he going to operate the bolt mechanism? It's not like specialty rifles tend to cater for physiological minorities.

Gone of the Head.

[VortexCortex]

It all seems familiar somehow.
Step one: "Removing the head, or destroying the brain..."
Let me guess, step two is: "You've got red on you.",
and step three involves being "a bit bite-y."

If that T-Rex is wielding a cricket bat it's proof what killed off the dinosaurs wasn't the asteroid -- It was the Zombies it caused.

Lake Wobegon effect?

[G3ckoG33k]

Isn't this part of the Lake Wobegon effect? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon_effect

It sure does sound like so.

What a stupid question.

[The Grim Reefer]

"Once a Tyrannosaurus took down a Triceratops, how did it go about eating it?"

Any way it wanted to, of course.

I can just picture Miss manners telling it to place a napkin on it's lap and which fork to use...

Then becoming one of the hors d'oeuvres

You keep using that word...

[EGenius007]

"Theirs was the immortal battle"

Simple Answer

[Penurious Penguin]

- Primordial Bath Salts

Triceratops

[khr]

Triceratops... It's what's for dinner!

Easy

[PPH]

I grab the triceatops by the hind legs, flip it on its back and rub its belly. This puts it in a trance and then its helpless

Bon Apetite.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[LiENUS]

5000 ft lbf of energy is "much more" than 13000 ft lbf? since when?

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[Nadaka]

The hecate is a 20mm sniper/anti-material rifle.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[Nadaka]

damn it. That article isn't about the 20mm version.

It's like the elephant joke...

[Phydeaux]

It's like the elephant joke...

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time...

This ain't jurassic park

[partyguerrilla]

Wouldn't it remove the feathers first? Aren't dinosaurs supposed to be all feathered now?

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[TubeSteak]

If you can afford a specialty hunting rifle, you can probably afford to have one made or modified for a left handed grip.

Easier method

[Princeofcups]

Why didn't T. Rex just use it's hands to pull the head off? Oh wait.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[operagost]

Why do the French need such a powerful gun to surrender?

What Wine Would You Serve?

[avgjoe62]

White? Red? Or would you serve it with some fava beans and a fine chianti?

Re:What Wine Would You Serve?

[LMariachi]

Poultry normally goes with whites, but the meat of large muscular birds such as ostrich more closely resemble beef than chicken. However, large sedentary reptiles’ meat is more “chickeny.” I don’t picture a Triceratops doing a whole lot of running around, but it’s hard to say whether it would be more akin to an ostrich or an alligator. A Zin (NOT white Zin, ever) should cover the bases if you don’t know what you’re getting into, although it probably wouldn’t be the ideal choice for either. And of course all bets are off if you’re heavily spicing it, making a curry stew or whatever.

Re:Ah Yes! Triceratops ...

[Genda]

No, more of a Jurassic Pinata.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[Chris Burke]

Surrender is safest and easiest when the enemy is dead.

Apparently just like a chocolate bunny

[jbezorg]

/ that's all I got...

The important question remains unanswered...

[hey!]

Hot sauce or garlic butter?

If the flavor is kind of just "meh", you break out the pepper sauce. If the taste is *nasty* you go for the garlic butter.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[gonzonista]

Doesn't matter. Have you seen those tiny arms? T Rex will never be able to shoot straight.

This most emphatically is science

[DragonWriter]

While it is an interesting "story", this is not science. Every man and his dog can look at marks on a rock you pick up from the street on your way to work, and tell you "the history of it", the hypothesis of how it acquired the marks, etc. It will be an interesting story, but it is not science. Why? Because there is no way to test that hypothesis.

Incorrect. Hypotheses about behavior inspired by review of any set of fossil evidence, like the one here, will produce predictions about what can expect to be found (and, more important, about what would not be expected to be found) in other fossil evidence not in the examined set on which the hypothesis was based. This provides a route to falsification of exactly the type seen everywhere else in empirical science.

You can't directly observe the hypothesized behavior, but that's typical of scientific models -- what you can do is validate whether future observations match or conflict with what you would expect to be true if the hypothesis drawn from current observations were correct.

Re:Ah Yes! Triceratops ...

[Nidi62]

Actually, when I eat gummi bears, I usually eat the legs first, then the arms, then head, leaving the torso for last. Yes, I like my gummi bears to suffer and probably need some professional help.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[Lehk228]

one of those new Iranian 14.5mm sniper rifles would do nicely, assuming they don't blow apart when fired and they actually exist, rather than being some more iranian photoshop derived weapons

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[Golddess]

Have you seen those tiny arms? T Rex will never be able to shoot straight.

He can with science!

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[MDMurphy]

First shoot it with a .458 magnum several times (An elephant gun to those who don't know calibers and it's has MUCH more of a punch than a .50 caliber. A 20mm cannon would be better, but I have yet to see a rifle for that.), start a bonfire (you're NOT going to butcher the beast! IT's too big), and then when it's done, take a machete and hack off chunks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.950_JDJ

Where the rubber meets the road:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://i.imgur.com/CsCxz.jpg

Re:Ah Yes! Triceratops ...

[jonadab]

Wait...

There are people who eat gummy bears one at a time (as opposed to just tossing handfuls of them into your gaping maw)?

Huh. I learn somethin' new every day. Thanks, Slashdot.

How did T-rex eat a Triceratops?

[reboot246]

A very clumsy 69?

Re:Ah Yes! Triceratops ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It might be a shock to you, but some of us aren't fat asses.

Wayback Machine

[sudonim2]

Trilobite! Trilobites! Betcha can't eat the heads!

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[Aighearach]

Iranian weapons are funny

http://stuff.rubypanther.com/images/Iran-Army-Day.jpg

Really?

[kakaburra]

How the hell is this on /.??

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[nicomede]

It's common knowledge that the military equipment preferred by Tyranosaurs is the F-14 Tomcat. Soooooo cool!

Who knows anymore

[SmallFurryCreature]

One tactic T-rex might have used is the same as the giant lizard (komodo dragon), it rushes the prey, takes one septic bite, then trails the enemy till it dies.

The hyena was considered a carrior eater but makes more kills then the lion who was considered a predator.

And considering build, the Hyena seems closer to the T-rex then a buzzard. Powerful jaw and neck muscles that can deliver a massive traumatic bite to anything living or dead.

Re:First shoot it with a .458 magnum - several tim

[Man Eating Duck]

Doesn't matter. Have you seen those tiny arms? T Rex will never be able to shoot straight.

Exactly

Re:Ah Yes! Triceratops ...

[jonadab]

Actually, personally, I don't eat gummi bears at all. I've never cared for them.

(This does not stop me from getting fat eating other foods, of course...)

Re:Ah Yes! Triceratops ...

[Nidi62]

Well, since I really only like the green and red ones, I pretty much have to eat them singularly, or at most 2-3 at a time.