homeWelcome, sign in or click here to subscribe.login
     


 

 

Weekend


Subscriber content preview

September 29, 2006

Strange But True!

Q. Did the movie “Jurassic Park” get it right when one human tells another that if they stand stock still, T. rex won't be able to see them, even though the beast is right in front of them? Was “sight for ‘saur eyes” really that bad?

A. Actually, not only did T. rex have some of the best vision in animal history but at that range it would also have smelled the people, says University of Oregon computer scientist Kent A. Stevens in the “Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.” By studying skull bones and measuring eye positions in facial models of several types of dinosaurs, the scientists concluded that T. rex had a binocular field of view of 55 degrees, wider than modern hawks. The wider an animal's binocular field, the better its depth perception and capacity to see objects — even those that are motionless or camouflaged. The huge eye sockets suggest very large eyes for T. rex. If those eyes were bird-like rather than reptilian in design, it might have had better vision than our own for seeing fine detail. Also since the eyes are very far separated, T. rex might have been able to see in depth much farther than we can.


 
. . .


To read this story in full login or purchase a subscription.



Previous columns:



Email or user name:
Password:
 
Forgot password? Click here.