For our first ever episode of Terrible Lizards we start, perhaps inevitably, with the most famous and iconic dinosaur ever – Tyrannosaurus. (Actually I wanted to do Nqwebasaurus but Iszi wouldn't let me). The king is an absolute cultural icon and appears in pretty much every dinosaur movie and documentary of the last 50 years. As science progresses though, that mostly means that the public perception of this animal has got more and more out of tune with our modern understanding. So in this episode we talk about their giant heads and weird teeth, famously small arms, super-senses and tackle the vexed question of were they predators or scavengers? We round off with the issues of the mystery dwarf tyrannosaur Nanotyrannus and whether it is, or isn't just a juvenile rex. Then the brilliant natural history broadcaster Chris Packham joins us to share his love of Tyrannosaurus and to ask Dave what he thinks a Tyrannosaurus would look like in real life.

Links:

Dave's Royal Institution lecture on the evolution of tyrannosaurs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-jD7kQvyPs

Guardian article by Dave & Chris Packham on the making of their Tyrannosaurus documentary: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/02/the-real-t-rex-with-chris-packham-an-attempt-at-a-truthful-tyrannosaurus-bbc

Series of blogposts by Dave on the wonderful collection of Tyrannosaurus specimens at the Carnegie Museum: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/carnegie-tyrannosaurus-pt-1/