POWELL, Wyo. - A CT scan of dinosaur bones from northwest
Wyoming could help resolve a dispute about the great Tyrannosaurus
rex.
The scan gave researchers a detailed look at a bite mark in the
rib in the hadrosaur, a duckbilled herbivore that lived 70 million
years ago.
Scientists theorize a T. rex bit the hadrosaur — and the
hadrosaur survived. That's significant because it is often thought
that T. rex was a scavenger that did not hunt live prey.
"A 40-foot long, plant-eating dinosaur was attacked in what is
now Park County 68 million years ago and lived to fight another
day," said paleontologist Marilyn Wegweiser, of Cody. "And that's
cool."
The scan was done for free at Park County Memorial Hospital.
The hadrosaur, nicknamed "Lucky" by Wegweiser, led a tough life,
evidenced by various bones showing wounds that healed.
"Something was trying to make a meal out of this dinosaur,"
Wegweiser said. "Using this technology, we can virtually model the
tooth that did the biting."
The goal of the CT scan was to create a three-dimensional model
of the tooth that caused the wound. "We can take this model into a
museum and compare it with teeth of dinosaurs currently known to
science," she said.
Wegweiser said the tooth was large and probably done by a large
theropod — a class of meat-eating dinosaurs that walked primarily
on two back legs.
"This tooth comparison could give us solid evidence of a
Tyrannosaurus rex attack," she said. "If it's proven that it's not
a Tyrannosaurus rex, then we have an entirely new dinosaur. It's a
win-win situation."
Lucky _ or what is left of Lucky _ was discovered by Wegweiser
north of Powell in the fall of 2000. The exact location of the dig
is being held confidential, she said.
She has unearthed a great portion of the dinosaur over the past
four years. "It takes a long time to dig up an entire dinosaur with
a dental pick," she said. "There will be more than 33,000 man hours
in this by the time it's dug up, analyzed and put on display."
Wegweiser said the results of the CT scans will be ready this
fall.
"We have to get the processing of the data done, assemble the
various cross-sections into a single three-dimensional model,
generate a virtual model and hard copy of the tooth, compare and
submit the data for publication," she said.
