The age of the dinosaurs is known for its giant reptiles. As an adult, the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex weighed over 6 tons—about as heavy as a city bus. But T. rexes were smaller teenagers before they grew into gargantuan adults.
“If you were to hop into a time machine and go to the Cretaceous period (145 to 65 million years ago), you’d be much more likely to see a teenage T. rex as opposed to an adult,” says Katlin Schroeder, a Ph.D. candidate in biology at the University of New Mexico. Not only were these teenage meat-eating dinosaurs abundant, Schroeder’s team found that they likely played an important role in the food chain.
The age of the dinosaurs is known for its giant reptiles. As an adult, the Tyrannosaurus rex weighed more than 6 tons. That’s about as heavy as a city bus. But T. rexes were smaller teenagers before they grew into giant adults.
T. rexes lived during the Cretaceous period, 145 to 65 million years ago. “If you were to hop into a time machine and go to the Cretaceous period, you’d be much more likely to see a teenage T. rex as opposed to an adult,” says Katlin Schroeder. She’s a Ph.D. candidate in biology at the University of New Mexico. There were many teenage meat-eating dinosaurs back then. Schroeder’s team found that they likely were important to the food chain. A food chain is a series of organisms related by their feeding habits, where smaller species are eaten by larger ones.