A CT scan of dinosaur bones from northwest Wyoming could help resolve a dispute about the great Tyrannosaurus rex.
The scan gave researchers a detailed look at a bite mark in the rib in the hadrosaur, a duckbilled herbivore that lived 70 million years ago.
Scientists theorize a T. rex bit the hadrosaur _ and the hadrosaur survived. That's significant because it is often thought that T. rex was a scavenger that did not hunt live prey.
"A 40-foot long, plant-eating dinosaur was attacked in what is now Park County 68 million years ago and lived to fight another day," said paleontologist Marilyn Wegweiser, of Cody. "And that's cool."
The scan was done for free at Park County Memorial Hospital.
The hadrosaur, nicknamed "Lucky" by Wegweiser, led a tough life, evidenced by various bones showing wounds that healed.
"Something was trying to make a meal out of this dinosaur," Wegweiser said. "Using this technology, we can virtually model the tooth that did the biting."
The goal of the CT scan was to create a three-dimensional model of the tooth that caused the wound. "We can take this model into a museum and compare it with teeth of dinosaurs currently known to science," she said.
Wegweiser said the tooth was large and probably done by a large theropod _ a class of meat-eating dinosaurs that walked primarily on two back legs.
"This tooth comparison could give us solid evidence of a Tyrannosaurus rex attack," she said. "If it's proven that it's not a Tyrannosaurus rex, then we have an entirely new dinosaur. It's a win-win situation."
Lucky _ or what is left of Lucky _ was discovered by Wegweiser north of Powell in the fall of 2000. The exact location of the dig is being held confidential, she said.
She has unearthed a great portion of the dinosaur over the past four years. "It takes a long time to dig up an entire dinosaur with a dental pick," she said. "There will be more than 33,000 man hours in this by the time it's dug up, analyzed and put on display."
Wegweiser said the results of the CT scans will be ready this fall.
"We have to get the processing of the data done, assemble the various cross-sections into a single three-dimensional model, generate a virtual model and hard copy of the tooth, compare and submit the data for publication," she said.
