The fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex, the undisputed king of the Cretaceous, is easily the most famous dinosaur to have ever lived. Since its first fossil was unearthed in the late 1800s, T. rex has been immortalized in academic research, museums, and the public imagination.
If your diet of T. rex knowledge comes strictly from pop culture, though, you might come away with a skewed perspective on what these titanic predators ate. (In the first Jurassic Park film, it's seen chomping on a live goat, a rubber tire, and a cowardly lawyer.) Yet for decades, scientists have been turning to the fossil record to unearth more and more about the most well-studied dinosaur, including its feeding habits.
All of which begs the question: What did T. rex eat?
"Tyrannosaurs were hypercarnivores, meaning they ate meat and lots of it," says Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary. "Throughout its lifespan, a T. rex would have dined on a variety of other dinosaurs in the ecosystem."
By following the trail left by coprolite, or fossilized poop, as well as bite marks and fractures in the bones of other dinosaurs, paleontologists have dug up key details about how the T. rex chowed down.
