![]() This means a lot of our favorite dinosaur depictions are incorrect, including the iconic Jurassic Park T. We're upending this popular depiction by covering their teeth with lizard-like lips. "Curiously, there was never a dedicated study or discovery instigating this change and, to a large extent, it probably reflected preference for a new, ferocious-looking aesthetic rather than a shift in scientific thinking. So, monitors can be compared quite favorably with extinct animals like theropod dinosaurs based on this similarity of function, even though they are not closely related."Ī half-grown Tyrannosaurus, sporting a full set of lips, runs down Struthiomimus, a beaked ostrich dinosaur. From the smallest dwarf monitor to the Komodo dragon, the teeth function in much the same way. "It's quite remarkable how similar theropod teeth are to monitor lizards. Study co-author Derek Larson, Collections Manager and Researcher in Paleontology at the Royal BC Museum in Canada, said, "Paleontologists often like to compare extinct animals to their closest living relatives, but in the case of dinosaurs, their closest relatives have been evolutionarily distinct for hundreds of millions of years and today are incredibly specialized. Most reptile lips cover their teeth but cannot be moved independently-they cannot be curled back into a snarl, or make other sorts of movements we associate with lips in humans or other mammals. These lips were probably not muscular, like they are in mammals. ![]() A one-sheet summary of the main investigations and conclusions of the study. ![]()
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