T. Rex Smelled Its Way Through Life

May 15 -- In Jurassic Park, the terrified kids held perfectly still soa hungry celluloid Tyrannosaurus rex couldn’t detect them.

In reality, scientists say, they would’ve been lunch meat.

CT-scanning of the desk-sized skull of Sue, the most complete T.rex fossil ever found, suggests the supreme carnivore in NorthAmerica 65 million years ago had acute senses.

Its forward-pointing eyes provided a wide field of view, and earstructures suggest it could hear well.

Smell Was Key Sense

But Sue’s key advantage was smell. Its olfactory bulbs weregrapefruit-sized. The skull opening for the bundle of olfactorynerves leading to the brain is wider than the spinal cord.

“The olfactory bulbs are larger than the cerebrum,” saidpaleontologist Chris Brochu of the Field Museum of Natural History,the only scientist to have extensively examined the Sue fossil.

The dinosaur “smelled its way through life,” he said.

Sue’s skeleton will be unveiled at the Field Museum on May 17after nearly three years of cleaning and assembly. For now, it isoff-limits to outsiders. Brochu has yet to reveal many details.

High Hopes for Sue

At a recent paleontology meeting, he said it was unlikely thatthe bones, however complete, would settle key debates about thesuperstar of dinosaurs.

Among them: T. rex’s color and vocalizations, whether it waswarm-blooded, hunter or scavenger, male or female.

Others are more hopeful.

Thomas R. Holtz Jr. of the University of Maryland examined Suebriefly before it was auctioned in 1997, but key parts were stilljacketed in protective plaster.

“The complete tail of a T. rex has not yet been described,” hesaid. “I would like to see if the furcula, or wishbone, ispresent.”

Peter Larson, president of the Black Hills Institute ofGeological Research in Hill City, S.D., directed the fossil’sexcavation in 1990. He spent two years examining the bones untilthey were seized by federal agents in a legal dispute.