The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs Page #3

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So what, realistically,

could it have done to improve its agility?

The one thing it might have been able to do

is change it's posture when it was running.

So what we're suggesting for T-Rex,

that instead of running with the head

and neck stretched out horizontally

they would have actually pulled

their neck back into an S shape.

They may also have raised the tail up off of

the horizontal to an angle above the ground.

Both of these changes would have

greatly increased the agility of T-Rex

But speed and agility aren't the whole story...

If T rex was clever enough, he might have been

able to plan his attack and outsmart Triceratops.

But to investigate that theory scientists

would have to look inside its brain.

Impossible?

Scott Rogers doesn't think so.

He's one of the few people in the world

who has tried to get into the mind of a dinosaur.

One of the most difficult

aspects of studying the behaviour of an extinct

species is trying to find its brain.

The problem with the brain is, is it tends

not to fossilise. Instead it tends to rot.

Up until now all scientists had to work on were

the mud filled spaces inside the skull

where the brain used to be... the endocast.

But Scott had an ingenious idea - to look inside

this endocast using the latest medical scanner.

He wanted to see if there were any traces of

the brain left behind in the fossilised mud.

What we found was something quite extraordinary.

For the very first time

we are really looking at material in here

that we believe reflects

the actual structure of the brain.

The white, blobby mass reveals the true shape

and structure of a dinosaur brain,

for the first time ever.

When Scott compared the shape of the brain

with the brains of other animals,

he made a fascinating discovery.

By comparing that with modern species

what we find is that brain

resembles very closely the brain of an alligator.

If T rex's brain was similar to an alligator, s,

then this provides a clue to how T rex behaved.

An alligator's thought process

is extremely simplistic.

If it smells something

that it thinks is a food item

it turns to it, hits it swallows it

and that's then end of it.

It's not going toss it around think

about well maybe I should've attacked it.

May be I should have picked at it.

No it's going to immediately respond

and have a very distinct behaviour.

Just like an alligator, T rex would sense

something and go after it. No questions asked.

But what about Triceratops -

would it have been able to outsmart T rex?

If we look at this model of a Triceratops

what we find is something strikingly different.

In this case we see that the brain size,

which would be right in this region,

is almost the same size

as the spinal cord region.

What that tells us is as sensory information

came into the brain

it basically went straight through.

So no time for thinking -

Triceratops was even more stupid than T rex.

It probably did very,

very little when a tyrannosaurus came up,

it would protect itself, it might charge

but it had a limited ability to respond.

He might have been stupid,

but the fossil evidence confirms

that Triceratops did survive an attack by T rex.

So the lumbering 3-horned vegetarian

must have been able to fight back.

The horns look like highly

effective offensive weapons.

But how exactly did it use them?

Andrew Farke, from Stony Brook University,

New York, is an expert on horned dinosaurs.

It's very easy to think

that perhaps Triceratops,

when it was confronted by a hungry T. Rex,

something that was threatening it,

that it would have immediately charged and tried

to use it's horns with all the force it had.

A modern animal that charges

just like this is a rhino.

It has a sharp horn and when it's provoked,

it'll charge at full pelt,

using all its weight to ram its opponent.

So at first glance it definitely might appear

that Triceratops was charging like a rhino.

This is a theory that has never been tested.

Until now.

To find out exactly what kind of damage

a charging Triceratops

would have inflicted on T rex,

the crew of bio-mechanic experts set

about building a life size

replica of a Triceratops skull.

The model makers began by examining

a cast of an existing fossil.

But to create a true replica,

the they had to find a material that had

the same properties as the original bone.

They tested 20 different combinations

of resin composites

before they found one that had exactly

the same tensile strength.

It was important to make sure that the model

behaved just like a real animal in an impact.

The team of experts worked for months to

meticulously prepare for the bio-mechanical test.

Finally they have an accurate model of the skull

built from a specially developed resin composite.

They have a top charge speed of 15 miles an hour.

And they have a weight for a Triceratops

of 5-8 tonnes.

And now they are ready for the test -

a crash test.

Here in this hanger

they normally in crash test cars.

But this time its dinosaurs. This is a unique

experiment on a truly spectacular scale.

This is about as close as

we could possibly get to

what a real Triceratops skull

would have been like in life.

This whole thing is mounted up

on this apparatus -

its going to send it barrelling down here and

then run smack into our simulated T rex.

The T rex stand in doesn't look much like T rex

but it has all the qualities of T rex.

The muscle and flesh is represented

by crushable honeycomb aluminium.

This is covered by the, T. Rex skin, -

made from thin sheet aluminium and leatherette.

For the first time ever,

this bio-mechanical experiment is going to reveal

what would have happened

if Triceratops charged at full speed

into the belly of T rex.

The skull clearly wasn't strong enough

for Triceratops

to charge like a rhino and ram T rex..

In slow motion we can see what happened.

The sharp, narrow horns sliced easily through

the simulated T rex

but the broader beak and nose

couldn't cut through the flesh and muscle.

Forces built up to 6 tons and

the Triceratops's skull started to fail -

fracturing at its weakest point.

This would have meant certain death

for the colossal vegetarian.

So its back to the drawing board to find out

how Triceratops could have survived

an attack by T rex.

But, the outcome of any predator prey battle

is often determined by who sees who first.

So how well could T rex see?

The size of the eye socket suggests that the

eyeball was about the size of a grapefruit,

with plenty of room for the sensors needed

for fairly sophisticated vision.

Good eyesight would have been very useful

when it came to hunting down Triceratops...

Kent Stevens has been using laser measurements

to investigate the link

between the position of T rex's eyes

and its behaviour.

Modern predators, like cheetahs who chase down

their prey, have eyes right at the front.

This gives them good 3D vision and

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