
Boston (DbTechno) – Results of a new study suggest that it may have been a throat infection that caused the death of Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex.
According to scientists studying Sue, the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton at Chicago’s Field Museum, she may have developed a throat infection causing her throat to swell up and for her to eventually starve to death.
Sue is one of the most famous Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons around because she is nearly completely intact.
She is named after the woman who found her, fossil hunter Sue Hendrickson, who was working in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1990.
She was unveiled back in 2000, and since then scientists have been studying the 13 foot tall bone structure, to try to learn about the ancient life she lived.
Scientists have paied particular attention to a number of holes in her jaw bone, which they say may indicate a severe throat infection in the back of her throat.
Writing in the journal PloS scientists detail their opinions, writing that it is very possible that Sue developed a disease called trichomonosis which settled in her throat and damaged her bone structure.
“People have speculated in the past about the holes in the jaw,” said Mark Goodwin, a paleontologist at UC Berkeley. “The strength of this paper is that it presents a hypothesis and tests it.”
Sue died because she got buried by tons of earth which is why we have a fossil to look at today. If she died of a throat disease her body would have been picked clean and/or rotted away on the land surface – ergo, no fossil remains. Unless of course the death by throat disease just happened to be immediately followed by the tons of earth burial…