New Tyrannosaurus Rex Research Could Make Jurassic Park Even More Inaccurate

If you're hoping to get a serious education in modern dinosaur theory from Jurassic Park -- a fantasy film created almost thirty years ago -- we are sorry to say you will probably be disappointed. Still, it's fun to dig back into the movie every so often and see what holds up and what doesn't. New research suggests one of the things that may not hold up is the actually look of the Tyrannosaurus Rex's face. That's because the king of all dinosaurs apparently had more pronounced lips than previously thought, suggesting that many shots of snarling, toothy T-rexes are unlikely to have occurred in nature.

Obviously if you picture a T-rex in your head, you probably see that they have lips. It isn't often that they're depicted as having teeth mounted on the outside of their face entirely. Still, the visual of their long teeth poking out over and under the lips is a common one. Now, scientists say they don't believe that is likely.

"We are basically still living in the shadow of Jurassic Park [from] 30 years ago," Dr Mark Witton, of the University of Portsmouth and a co-author of a new study said (via The Guardian). "We need to move away from this toothy lipless look for things like Tyrannosaurus and towards these animals having more lizard-like faces."

The theory is more than just computer models based on genetics. It's tied to the way fossils and bones have been preserved in the millions of years since the dinosaurs died out.

"No animals can repair or replace worn enamel, and yet the thin enamel of tyrannosaurs remains intact even though some retained their teeth well over a year," Witton said. He compared this to American alligators, which have teeth that jut out of their mouths. Those teeth are almost always damaged, especially after death.

Witton suggested that the general look of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the wild would be like if a komodo dragon had a 5-foot head. 

"I suspect [these researchers] are right, and that tyrannosaurs had more soft tissue covering their teeth than crocodiles, but I'm still on the fence as to whether they had as much stuff covering their teeth as monitor lizards," said Professor Steve Brusatte, of the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study but is in general agreement with its findings.