The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs Page #4

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a better ability to track their prey.

When Kent measured the eye position of T rex,

he was surprised at what he saw.

In the case of T-Rex, I didn't see just a very

large reptile; this is closer to like a wolf,

The snout drops down...

relative to the plane of the eyes,

it becomes narrower... so this could look down

and over its snout providing a very broad field

of view ahead of it.

The position of T rex's eyes

gave it good 3D vision,

like that of a modern hunter -

so it was well able

to actively chase down Triceratops.

So how well could Triceratops see him coming?

Modern animals that need to keep on the alert for

predators have eyes on the sides of their heads.

Kent could see that Triceratops

was just the same.

It had side-mounted eyes to keep

a lookout for potential killers.

But it also had blind spots....

This whole structure here,

part of the support of these horns,

obscures forward vision.

Another thing is this large frill;

this large frill produced a very large

blind spot behind the animal.

It could have compensated for it partly

by swinging its head from side to side

so it could look over one shoulder

or another at a time.

It was a potential vulnerability that a predator

could certainly have exploited.

If Triceratops was attacked by T rex

it would have had to defend itself.

But how exactly did it do that?

Andrew Farke, the Triceratops horn expert,

has a new theory.

He's been re-examining

some triceratops fossil skulls

and has found some tell tale wound marks

that no one's noticed before.

Perhaps there's a little bit of bone

that's missing, in front of the eye.

On the cheek you might find an odd hole,

... in some specimens

there are abnormalities on the frill.

And from the shape of the marks

he can tell what caused the damage...

Triceratops going horn to horn with each other.

Now we know for sure that Triceratops

was using its horns against its own kind,

its very likely it was also

using them against T rex.

Triceratops didn't use its horns to ram T rex

so it most likely used them like this -

flicking its head to gore its attacker.

Potentially lethal.

But an attack by T rex's jaws

would have been just as brutal.

Greg Erikson has been investigating

exactly how T rex attacked its victims.

I think the best analogy that can be

made for the feeding of T rex

amongst living animals is the great white shark.

This predator doesn't

just crunch on flesh and bone,

but rips out great chunks of its victim.

Greg has found evidence on his fossil Triceratops

pelvis that T rex behaved just like the shark.

What you see is this animal

bit down into the bone

and then pulled backwards removing large

chunks of bone and leaving a furrow behind.

Now if we look at t a bite mark that is made by

the Great White Shark, such as this mark here,

that was made on a whale vertebra,

we see almost the exact same pattern.

The tooth was pushed down into the bone here and

pulled across leaving a furrow very much like

what we see on the Triceratops pelvis.

Using the steel T rex head,

the bio-mechanics team are going to find out

what kind of effect this brutal bite

would have had on Triceratops.

And their stand-in for Triceratops?

A side of pork.

To reproduce the ripping motion, they're going

to use an industrial strength forklift.

Just like a shark,

there were two distinct parts to a T rex bite.

First, the deep penetrating

crunch through flesh and bone

And then, using its full body weight,

T rex pulled backwards,

ripping through the flesh.

A devastating attack.

The experiment proves that T rex would have been

able to bite off 330 pounds of meat in one go -

about the weight of two men.

But its doubtful that it could

have swallowed that amount.

By examining the skull of T rex,

scientists have concluded

that it would have been able to swallow a chunk

of meat about the weight of an entire pig.

Now they've built the bio-mechanical T rex head,

the team are keen to test it to the limit....

Just for fun,

they want to see how a twentieth century

icon stands up to an icon

of a very different era...

The force of this bio-mechanical bite is

no greater than the force of a T rex bite,

as calculated by the scientists.

So - who would have had the advantage

when T rex hunted Triceratops?

What's the evidence?

T rex was certainly superior when it came

to eyesight - it had excellent vision.

Whilst Triceratops had a crucial blind-spot.

T rex could run quite fast on a straight run

but its body shape gave it serious problems

with manoeuvrability.

Triceratops was slower, but much more agile.

T rex had formidable weapons with its

powerful jaws and huge, serrated teeth

But Triceratops could fight back -

using its horns to gore its attacker.

The evidence suggests an even match -

and at the end of the day

it may well have been a case of which one

was the first to make a mistake....

Using all the data from the research,

and the biomechanical tests,

it's now possible to finally and

faithfully recreate the titanic confrontation

that might well have happened,

65 million years ago....

This impressive vegetarian has proved

to be a formidable opponent.

One false move by T Rex,

and the consequences would have been fatal

In the next programme - the truth about

the two-legged meat-eater, Velociraptor.

It was much smaller than T rex

but no less terrifying.

The technical team will build another life-size

bio-mechanical model to find out exactly

how this killer dinosaur used

its legendary disemboweling claw...

And all will be revealed about

its gruesome secret.

In prehistoric times dinosaurs were engaged

in a constant battle for survival.

And dinosaur wars determined who would live...

and who would die.

In this programme scientists

will be investigating

how a dinosaur the size of a small car

would have stood up to the lethal claw

of a turkey-sized animal with attitude.

And a team of biomechanic experts will be

building life-size replicas of dinosaur weaponry.

They'll discover who killed who,

75 million years ago.

The prehistoric plains of Mongolia were home

to several different kinds of dinosaur.

But one of the nastiest was a blood-thirsty

two-legged meat-eater called Velociraptor.

In the movie, Jurassic Park,

Velociraptor was 6 foot tall with a vicious claw

that could rip through flesh.

From then on

he was stuck with an evil reputation.

But how much of this is true?

In reality,

Velociraptor was considerably smaller

than in the movie,

and its appearance was very different...

For a start Velociraptor had feathers!

Scientists also know how it behaved...

They've discovered what it could kill -

and precisely how it killed.

And the truth is just

as terrifying as the fiction.

Paleontologists have only ever found one,

nearly complete, fossil skeleton.

But the bones betray the first indisputable fact

- Velociraptor was only 2 and a half feet tall.

And like all two legged carnivorous dinosaurs...

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