Wyrex tail injury

[Vladimír Socha]

Good day to all listmembers,

I'd like to ask if there is a paper describing in detail the severe tail injury of Tyrannosaurus rex individual "Wyrex" (BHIGR-6230)? According to some internet discussions, it didn't live long after suffering that injury, after all (days or few weeks at most). Thank you, in advance. VS.

[Mickey Mortimer]

Nope. Has that even been mentioned in the literature at all?

Mickey Mortimer

[Adrian Boeye]

Wyrex does make an appearance in a dino-doc "T. rex Ultimate Survivor" or something to that effect. The Houston Museum also appears to have a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk1_LuRWkAE), which states that the animal likely did not live long after the injury was inflicted if we are to assume the missing tail section is something which happened pre-mortem. Can't say much on the injury other than that, it does not seem to be decently represented in literature, only making some appearance with talk on the feet and the skin traces that came with it. Hope this helps.

Adrian

[Alberta Claw]

Anné et al. (2023) mentioned the putative tail injury in passing ("There is also at least one known example of extreme tail trauma resulting in a significant loss of the caudal series in a T. rex (“Wyrex”; HMNS 2006.1743.01) which shows no signs of autonomy, but instead severe reactive bone growth."), but there hasn't been any detailed description that I'm aware of.

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[Adrian Boeye]

If reactive bone is present, that would indicate that the animal survived at least a few weeks, potentially longer. Not having a detailed description or any histology though makes any further discussion difficult. Either way, that is pretty impressive considering how much of the tail got bitten off which means surviving (presumably) arterial bleeding, hypoperfusion, (likely) dodging severe infection at least for some time, and still managing to acquire food.