The research was being published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science Reuters.

Erlikosaurus had a slender and narrow skull, a beak-like snout tip and leaf-shaped teeth.įor the study, digital models were created based on CT scans of fossil skulls, with jaw muscles reconstructed on the basis of features left on the bones where the muscles were attached. Allosaurus possessed a more gracile skull, with curved, serrated teeth. Tyrannosaurus boasted a large, massively built skull with dagger-like teeth. Understanding jaw gape provides a deeper understanding of dinosaurs and helps shed light their capability to feed on certain types of prey, Lautenschlager said. rex most likely used their maximum jaw gape only rarely, “probably only in cases when large prey had to be captured.' Their optimal gape angle was 28 degrees. Its maximum jaw gape reached 43.5 to 49 degrees. It reached about 20 feet (6 meters) long and lived about 90 million years ago in Central Asia. All belong to the group of two-legged dinosaurs called theropods.Įrlikosaurus was a strange pot-bellied dinosaur with scythe-like hand claws. The study examined three species, meat-eaters Allosaurus fragilis, Tyrannosaurus rex and herbivore Erlikosaurus andrewsi. “Tyrannosaurus, in comparison, was able to exert continuous muscle force during different gape angles, which would be necessary for an animal biting through thick flesh and crushing bones.' “Swift ambush predators such as Allosaurus had the largest jaw gape among the studied dinosaur species, which is consistent with the requirement for a predator hunting larger prey,' said paleontologist Stephan Lautenschlager of Britain’s University of Bristol.

Allosaurus vs t rex