With a fourth Jurassic World movie in the works, our fascination with dinosaurs shows no signs of slowing, especially for series’ superstars Tyrannosaurus rex and other theropods. Ever since these beasts were first unearthed more than a century ago, National Geographic has been reporting on them, pairing the latest science with vivid illustrations. With every new discovery, our depictions must evolve.
Starting in 1919, a magazine feature laid the foundation, describing an Albertosaurus as a “powerful flesh-eater” that was “capable of destroying any of its herb-eating relatives.”
Three and a half decades after that, a 1978 cover story reported that T. rex was even larger, “fifty feet and six tons of bad news.” Until the late 1990s, most dinosaurs were shown with scaly reptilian skin, but theropod skeletons found in China suggested young T. rexes had feathers. That led to another new conclusion: “We can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say humans are mammals.”
And theropods may not have been the unstoppable killers of human fantasy. Discoveries in 2003 revealed that they were selective in their violence and submissive at times. In 2020 we reported that paleontology was in the midst of “another revolution—one fueled by a wealth of fresh fossils and innovative research techniques.” Even the latest renditions won’t necessarily be definitive but will be steps toward a clearer picture of these marvels from the past.
(Scientists have learned more about the ancient animals in the last 25 years than in the previous 250.)
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