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Description

This would be a quick drawing of a Tyrannosaurus rex with a hypothetical facial covering of large, armor-like scales. Lately I've been moving away from the more crocodilian interpretation of theropod facial integument (i.e. "cracked" keratinous covering with sensory bumps), since my paleontologist friend Jason Bourke has pointed out that the sensory bumps you see on crocodilian faces are a semiaquatic adaptation for sensing things in the water that strictly terrestrial animals like most theropod dinosaurs would not need.

That said, an armor-like facial covering of some kind seems very probable to me for tyrannosaurids and maybe other theropods, what with all the facial biting they appear to have done to each other (as indicated by scars left in the bone). Over the rest of the body, however, tyrannosaurid scalation would have been much finer as indicated by skin impressions.

Description

This would be a quick drawing of a Tyrannosaurus rex with a hypothetical facial covering of large, armor-like scales. Lately I've been moving away from the more crocodilian interpretation of theropod facial integument (i.e. "cracked" keratinous covering with sensory bumps), since my paleontologist friend Jason Bourke has pointed out that the sensory bumps you see on crocodilian faces are a semiaquatic adaptation for sensing things in the water that strictly terrestrial animals like most theropod dinosaurs would not need.

That said, an armor-like facial covering of some kind seems very probable to me for tyrannosaurids and maybe other theropods, what with all the facial biting they appear to have done to each other (as indicated by scars left in the bone). Over the rest of the body, however, tyrannosaurid scalation would have been much finer as indicated by skin impressions.