In National Geographic Channel’s new two-hour special, T. rex Autopsy, four intrepid scientists get to the heart (literally) of what made this fearsome creature tick.
Premiering on Monday, 8 June 2015 at 20:05 on National Geographic, channel 181 on DStv, T. rex Autopsy kicks off a week of dinosaur programming that includes Dino Death Match, T. rex: Ultimate Survivor, Bigger Than T. rex and the two-hour special Top Ten Biggest Beasts Ever.
This experiment offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore questions such as whether or not T. rex had feathers; how it fed with tiny arms; whether it was primarily a hunter or scavenger; how it digested food; how old it lived to be; how it procreated; and whether it was warm-blooded like a mammal or cold-blooded like a reptile.
With eyes the size of grapefruits, 30 centimetre-long teeth and a stomach big enough to digest a four-year-old child, the T. rex is lifelike inside and out. Using cutting-edge special effects techniques and in collaboration with esteemed veterinary surgeons, anatomists and palaeontologists, T. rex Autopsy illuminates the latest research and findings about Tyrannosaurus rex.
In their quest to document, x-ray and scan the T. rex, the experts must cope with unexpected surprises (such as the overwhelming smell manufactured for its innards) as they saw through bone, wade through blood and slice through muscle to determine how this 65-million-year-old beast may have lived – and died.
Employing industrial-sized tools, veterinary surgeon Dr. Luke Gamble, who specialises in large animal medicine, leads a group of palaeontologists that includes Dr. Tori Herridge, Dr. Steve Brusatte and Matthew T. Mossbrucker, in cutting it open. Their autopsy experience is as realistic as possible from the moment they lay eyes on the man-made model.
Dr. Herridge, who has previously conducted an autopsy on a woolly mammoth from the Ice Age, said, “The chance to take palaeontological evidence and transform that into something tangible in the real world, something we can all recognise and appreciate without expert knowledge, is very special. Not to give too much away, but one of the most interesting things we learnt is that the size of the T. rex heart was not one percent of the body size that is typical in mammals and birds, it was actually smaller than we might have predicted. A bigger heart just would not have fit inside the chest cavity. It took delving under its dual rib cages, getting blood all over my arms, to find that out.”
Half gruesome monster film, and all science, T. rex Autopsy is a special that both aspiring and reformed dinosaur fanatics will find engrossing.
T. rex Autopsy is produced for National Geographic Channels International (NGCI) by Impossible Factual. For Impossible Factual, the executive producer is Paul Wooding. For NGCI, Ed Sayer is the executive producer while executive vice president and Head of International Content is Hamish Mykura.
T. rex Autopsy airs from Monday, 8 June at 20:05 on National Geographic, channel 181 on DStv.