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The lipless rex experiment

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I'm currently in the middle of updating my Male Tyrannosaurus rex portrait based on slew of new info on the king's facial appearance that's cropped up within the last few months. Inspired by the resurgence of lipless rexes due to the Carr et al. (2017) paper on Daspletosaurus horneri. I'm not a proponent of the "croc lip" hypothesis myself, but I saw some worth in trying to illustrate this version as well. And I'm glad I did, because I learned a bunch from it.

So yes, this is what my rex would look if it had crocodilian style arrangement. The underlying skull is exactly the same as it will be for the updated portrait, an improved version with revisions based on the AMNH 5027 skull and reconstructions by Jaime Headden and Scott Hartman. The changes in integument are mainly based on the aforementioned Daspletosaurus paper and this video from WitmerLab (Dissecting with Emily). The life appearance is of course speculation in the absence of better evidence. The Carr paper is frustratingly unclear about the nature of some intergumentary structures (and in some cases misleading, using the word "scales" of dermal features that are, in fact, not scales) so I had to be a bit creative. In case you are wondering why the skin isn't cracked everywhere like in crocodiles, I used alligators as a starting point instead. Their facial skin is actually remarkably smooth, and I suspect based on a skull comparison that Alligator might be a closer match to T. rex.

So, what about that half-open mouth? Yes, that's more or less how it supposed to look like, based on Jaime Headden's work. Due to the ectopterygoid bone and the surrounding muscle anatomy, the lower jaw would have stopped at this position, so without extra tissue to close the gap, the croc lip rex would be left with a constantly partially open mouth. Living creatures can be surprising and weird, and we do know crocodiles spend a lot of time with their mouths agape, but somehow I don't think that's how tyrannosaurs worked.
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GRIMBLETOOTH's avatar
I'm open to either side of the argument, but In my opinion lipless terrestrial theropods just look...unnatural. Not saying that's not how they looked, but it honestly looks strange.