{"id":1667646,"date":"2022-10-01T07:55:51","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T11:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1667646"},"modified":"2022-10-01T07:56:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T11:56:16","slug":"what-caused-holes-in-sue-the-t-rexs-jawbone-scientists-are-stumped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/what-caused-holes-in-sue-the-t-rexs-jawbone-scientists-are-stumped\/","title":{"rendered":"What caused holes in Sue the T. rex\u2019s jawbone? Scientists are stumped"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhat-caused-holes-in-sue-the-t-rexs-jawbone-scientists-are-stumped%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1667646&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>By Will Dunham<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) \u2013     Sue, the biggest and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever unearthed, no doubt was a fearsome beast when this predator prowled what is now South Dakota about 67 million years ago at the twilight of the age of dinosaurs.<\/p>\n<p>But even this huge dinosaur, whose fossils are displayed at the Field Museum in Chicago, was not invulnerable. A prime example of this is the series of circular holes in Sue\u2019s jawbone that continue to baffle scientists. New research seeking an explanation for these holes has managed to rule out one major hypothesis, though the answer remains elusive.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers said a close examination of the eight holes \u2013 some the diameter of a golf ball \u2013 on the back half of Sue\u2019s left lower jawbone, or mandible, determined that they were not caused by a type of microbial infection as some experts had proposed. <\/p>\n<p>The holes were found to differ from bone damage caused by such an infection, said Bruce Rothschild, a medical doctor and research associate at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Cretaceous Research.<\/p>\n<p>Sue, measuring 40-1\/2 feet long (12.3 meters), represents one of the world\u2019s best-known dinosaur fossils. Tyrannosaurus  was one of the largest land predators ever, inhabiting western North America at the end of the Cretaceous Period. <\/p>\n<p>Field Museum paleontologist and study co-author Jingmai O\u2019Connor noted that about 15% of all known T. rex specimens have holes similar to Sue\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers explored whether the holes had been caused by an infection involving microbes called protozoans. One common protozoan disease known to occur in birds, which evolved from feathered dinosaurs, as well as in people is called trichomoniasis, caused by a parasitic protozoan. Trichomoniasis in people, though not birds, is a sexually transmitted disease.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Connor noted that one falcon diagnosed with trichomoniasis had shown damage in its jaw, but it differed from Sue\u2019s holes.<\/p>\n<p>The bone around Sue\u2019s holes showed signs of healing, indicating that whatever caused them did not kill the animal. Similarities were observed between Sue\u2019s healing and the healed breaks in other fossilized bones as well as healing bone seen around holes made in the skulls of ancient Inca people in Peru.<\/p>\n<p>The cause of Sue\u2019s holes remains a puzzle.<\/p>\n<p>Rothschild proposed the possibility of claw damage during mating, or as he put it: \u201cmounting from back or top with claws striking the posterior mandible.\u201d Sue has a feminine name \u2013  honoring the woman who discovered the fossils in 1990 \u2013 but the dinosaur\u2019s sex is unknown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI honestly have no clue what formed them,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. \u201cI really do not think they are bite marks or claw marks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA pathology that commonly affected T. rex individuals, that caused large holes to open up in the jawbone but only in the back of the jawbone, but didn\u2019t kill the T. rex because the holes started to heal, at least in Sue \u2013 it\u2019s weird,\u201d O\u2019Connor added. \u201cSo many hypotheses have been put forth only to be shot done. It\u2019s a good paleontology mystery \u2013 my favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The holes were not the only examples of damage endured by Sue, a dinosaur that lived about 33 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSue was quite old when it died and it shows numerous injuries and pathologies,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. \u201cIt had gout in its hands. It had fallen on its right side, busting its ribs \u2013 they healed, though. It had torn a ligament in the right arm \u2013 healing. It had a horrible bone infection in its left leg. It had arthritis in its tail. It would not have been a happy camper the last year of its life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Daniel Wallis)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/what-caused-holes-in\/attachment\/paleontologist-jingmai-oconnor-of-the-field-museum-in-chicago-looks\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI901AL-BASEIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI901AL-BASEIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/what-caused-holes-in\/attachment\/the-mounted-fossil-of-a-tyrannosaurus-rex-known-as-sue\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI901AM-BASEIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI901AM-BASEIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) \u2013 Sue, the biggest and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever unearthed, no doubt was a fearsome beast when this predator prowled what is now South<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1667646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1667646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1667646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}