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T. Rex 'Mostly Ate Babies'

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 5, 2009 1:19 AM CDT

(Newser) – The Hollywood image of Tyrannosaurus Rex battling huge herbivores is a long way from Jurassic reality, according to a new study. Instead of picking on animals its own size, T. Rex and other massive carnivores preferred their prey as young as possible, ideally when they were small enough to be swallowed whole, researchers tell the Independent.

Baby dinosaurs were easy targets because they lacked skill in evading predators, and hadn't yet developed the fearsome armor many adults had, according to the scientists. Paleontologists believe that baby-eating was so prevalent in carnivorous dinosaurs that it accounts for the fact that the fossils of very few juvenile dinosaurs have been found, and that few bones of adult dinosaurs bear teeth marks.

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Workers walk past replicas of the bones of Tyrannosaurus rex on display at dinosaur expo at Makuhari Messe in Makuhari, near Tokyo. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

An adult and baby Tyrannosaurus Rex robotic dinosaurs perform in "Walking with Dinosaurs" show at London's O2 Arena. (Getty Images)

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Young prey are easier to bring down and the risk of injury to the predator is much lower. - Paleontologist David Hone

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