Specialised shape thought to have evolved to let dinosaur spread stress across skull as it chewed prey
Lautenschlager notes the keyhole or figure-of-eight orbits were generally found among meat-eaters with large skulls, in particular big carnivorous theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex“There are a few groups within the theropods which have switched diet and adapted to a plant-eating or herbivorous diet. And those again have circular orbits,” said Lautenschlager. “So [orbit shape is] very closely linked to diet and size.
The study also proposes that circular orbits might limit the space for jaw muscles, and hence their volume, with Lautenschlager noting that could affect overall bite force. “Interestingly, you see that in juvenile T rex, they still have the perfectly circular or nearly circular orbits, because they didn’t produce that high bite forces presumably, or had slightly different diet, or different prey repertoire,” Lautenschlager added.
“When you peer into the eyes of a T rex skull, the eye socket looks a little bit funny, kind of like a keyhole. And it seems small for an animal with a head the size of a bathtub,” he said.
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