The idea that the woman Tyranosaurus Rex they are stronger than males may have no basis in reality. This hypothesis prevailed with regard to popular notions of these prehistoric beasts, but their origin could have been false.
In the world of science sex dinosaurs have a long time been controversial. Now, a new study We found that we really don't have enough evidence to distinguish male and female dinosaurs.
"Many years ago, a scientific article suggested that women Tyranosaurus Rex they are larger than males. However, this was based on the records of 25 broken specimens and our results show that this level of data is not good enough to reach this conclusion. " told me zoologist David Hone of Queen Mary University, London.
Some modern dinosaursLike hummingbirds and birds of prey, they actually have what is known as reverse sexual dimorphism, where the females are larger than the males. There are several hypotheses to explain why this is so, including that being bigger helps females produce more eggs
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. But in other species of birds, the males are larger.
Sexual dimorphism It is fairly common throughout the animal kingdom and can be incredibly obvious, such as in peacocks or monkfish.
Monkfish pushes sexual dimorphism to the extreme. (Tony Ayling / Wikipedia /CC BY-SA 1.0)
This may also be true for certain species of dinosaurs, such as horns. Shringasaurus indicus. However, the number of fossils examined for this species was so low, around seven, that I still can't exclude that the two persons considered as women because of the lack of horns may have lost these horns by accident or by lack of conservation.
Hone's team attempted to detect sex-related size differences in 106 museum specimens of a critically endangered crocodile, the gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) Adult gharial males have a fleshy bump at the tip of their snout of impressive length, supported by a hole in the nose bone called the nostril. Males are also known to be larger than females.
Gculial feminine (left) and masculine (right). (Lawrence Witmer / University of Ohio)
But when the narrative trench was ignored, the team analysis was unable to make an accurate distinction between the two sexes.
"There is no clear statistical signal for a solid line that produces two groups in all samples, despite a dataset of more than 100 samples." investigators concluded.
This supports a 2017 report who found previous studies on sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs were not statistically robust.
"Our research shows that even with prior knowledge of the sex of the specimen, it can be difficult to distinguish male and female gavials." Explain Whetstone.
"With most dinosaurs, we are not the same size as the data set used for this study, and we do not know the sex of the animals, so we expect this task to be much more difficult. "
While other traits of sexual dimorphism are likely to exist in at least some dinosaurs, such as the impressive color differences seen in some birds, their fossilized remains are unlikely to reveal them. So in the absence of discovery fossils with eggs inside, the gender of most dinosaur finds will remain a mystery.
"Our study suggests that unless the differences between the dinosaurs are really striking, or there is a clear feature like the pit (narial), we will endeavor to differentiate a male and female dinosaur by using our existing dinosaur skeletons. " told me
The study was published in Paleontology and evolutionary science.