Title: The Australian Museum magazine
Identifier: australianmuseum1192123aust (find matches)
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Australian Museum; Australian Museum
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: Sydney, Australian Museum
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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318 THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE.
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Cast of the skull and lower jaw of Tyrannosaurus. Prepared at the American Museum of Natural History. (Photo.—G. C. Glutton. saurus was not a subtle hunter, like the eat or the fox, but depended on brute strength and mass action to provide him with a meal. This gigantic reptile, the largest flesh-eating animal that ever walked the earth, lived in the Cretaceous times and was the culmi- nating effort of evolution in this par- ticular direction. It probably preyed on the giant herbivorous dinosaurs of the same period, which were mainly slow-moving, dull-witted creatures. BEAKED DINOSAURS. The huge amphibious dinosaurs had already passed away before Tyranno- saurus appeared, but there were other huge vegetable-feeding reptiles, the Beaked Dinosaurs or Predentata, which flourished contemporaneously with Tyrranosaurus. One of these was Tri- ceratops, a clumsy strongly built rep- tile somewhat resembling a rhinoceros in size and appearance. It had a huge head, three strong horns, and a great bony crest or frill projecting from the back of its skull over its neck. The animal was quadrupedal, with short massive legs, terminating in hoofs, a short thick tail, a stout body, and a short neck. Its muzzle was encased in a horny beak lesembling that of a turtle, and its teeth had broad crowns, indicating that it chewed its food, instead of swallowing it whole as modern birds and reptiles do. Even Tyranno- saurus would find no mean antagonist in this ponderous reptile, for the latter was practically its equal in bulk, and, with its great horns, which sometimes reached a length of almost three feet, and its armour-plated neck, it was well designed to withstand the rushing onset of the great carnivore. It is probable that there was many a battle royal between these two formidable antagonists in the distant geologic past, when these dragons of the prime stalked the earth in their might. The accompanying photograph, reproduced from a drawing by Charles R. Knight, depicts the preliminaries of such a combat. The Triceratops, male and female no doubt, are waiting with low- ered head, prepared to give battle to the advancing Tyrannosaur, while their young one seeks safety by pushing close to its bulky parent.

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