Tyrannosaurus rex might not have been puckering up for a good ol' snog, but the dinosaur's teeth were not exposed like a 'gator's; instead, they protected behind a pair of lizardy lips.
So, an international team of researchers led by paleobiologist Thomas Cullen of Auburn University in the US went looking at the resource we do have: bones.
Their work consisted of a detailed comparative analysis of the differences in the teeth and skull bones of lipped and lipless reptiles, including monitor lizards, marine iguanas, and alligators. They studied the tooth structure, wear patterns, and jaws of several reptiles in these groups and put together the set of characteristics of each., but extinct early crocodilians. And they found that the mouth anatomy ofT.
In particular, the wear patterns on the teeth of reptiles without lips significantly differ from those of carnivorous dinosaurs. Crocodilian teeth tend to be more easily damaged during fighting and feeding, a trait linked to the lack of protection from saliva in a closed mouth. The teeth of the dinosaurs in the team's study did not show wear consistent with this type of damage.
"Although it's been argued in the past that the teeth of predatory dinosaurs might be too big to be covered by lips, our study shows that, in actuality, their teeth were not atypically large,""Even the giant teeth of tyrannosaurs are proportionally similar in size to those of living predatory lizards when compared for skull size, rejecting the idea that their teeth were too big to cover with lips."jaw would have had difficulty closing fully without lips.
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