Comments on: Drawing Tyrannosaurus – You’re Probably Doing it Wrong

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 04:40:23 +0000

The T-Rex is called a T-Rex because, in profile, its silhouette is shaped like a T – spine and tail forming a perpendicular angle to its legs.

Easy.

By: Noah

Noah — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:36:41 +0000

Maybe it’s because WE stand upright.

DUH.

By: Ben J

Ben J — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:46:28 +0000

I’m with Nicholls on this one. I’m an art instructor and my students have a tendency to make mistakes in drawings even after the facts have been presented to them. If a model did a pose where they were bending over, most of my students would diminish the angle of the back. Muscle memory plays a huge part in drawings so if someone is used to drawing upright figures, it will be a struggle for them to draw a biped that has a horizontal spine and a good sense of balance. I’d bet that art students would be more likely to get the angle of the back correct in a drawing than biology students would.

By: Johnny O

Johnny O — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:04:44 +0000

T-rex was a scavenger. There was just too many large dinosaur carcasses rotting on the late Cretaceous landscape that would have provided a handy meal for it. Also, the dynamics of its legs don’t allow for it to chase prey in the same way that a lion does – but then again, the herbivorous dinosaurs of its time weren’t exactly antelope-like. Furthermore, please do not compare its legs’ stance to anything in bird: birds keep their femurs rigid, even when running; tyrannosaurs, on the other hand, swung their femurs as part of their gait.

By: Edward Martin III

Edward Martin III — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 19:16:14 +0000

Off the top of my head, I think we have a little trouble imagining something that powerful. We tend to build weaknesses into our popular monsters, and the meme of t. rex having useless stubby arms and being all upright is comical. Of course, I could be wrong, but I suspect it continues to exist BECAUSE it’s comical and because we need it to be comical (lest we accept that we aren’t A#1).

By: John Hutchinson

John Hutchinson — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 08:52:25 +0000

I wonder how much of this is an artifact of drawing paper in addition to lingering obsolete concepts. A tilted-up T. rex fits better on a vertical sheet of paper. If you make students draw on a square or horizontally turne sheet of paper would results differ? Maybe not but would be fun to test this.

By: chris y

chris y — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:27:20 +0000

I blame Ryan North.

By: Jack Pollock

Jack Pollock — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:54:57 +0000

Interesting experiment, but I see a lot of substance in SP’s comment about asking the subjects to draw other animals like mice. Most people can’t draw. They can’t draw things they see everyday. They can’t draw their own likeness or that of their friends and family. The common child’s human figure is a round or oblate head atop either a stick or series or elongate rubberband shapes; looking more like a balloon animal than a human. It’s sort of like the statistics on people’s understanding of evolution. How many surveys also ask the public about their understanding of basic Newtonian physics? I think you’d get similarly alarming shows of ignorance.

By: Zach Miller

Zach Miller — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:37:11 +0000

They retain a sliver of metacarpal, not actual finger. It would be like not having a pinky, but the “hand” part of the bone is still embedded in the meat of your hand.

By: JC

JC — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:54:55 +0000

If i’m not mistaken, recent finds have shown that Tyrannosaurs were three fingered. The smallest most delicate finger rarely survived fossilization.

[Tyrannosaurus retained a little splint of bone left from the third finger, but it's not something you would have seen looking at the dinosaur's hand. Tyrannosaurus and similar late, derived tyrannosaurs were definitely two-fingered carnivores. - Brian]