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Allosaurus Reinvented

In this modern age, it’s difficult to look in any one direction and not find something new and interesting in the paleontological world. I, however, often enjoy “throwbacks” and visits to those discoveries that thrilled the world, though their time in the spotlight may have passed, because it reminds me that these discoveries are still scientifically impressive and revolutionary despite the lack of raging headlines sweeping the news.

Without much tah-dah, the Allosaurus - a very popular dinosaur from the Jurassic period, and a formidable predator at that - has the uncanny ability to stay prominent in the mind as any individual conjures up images of the fiercest and, arguably most well known, carnivorous dinosaurs to have ever existed. 

There has been some controversy over Allosaurus in the past, for example, the renaming: Allosaurus wasn’t always gifted with this name, in fact, it was originally called Antrodemus (by paleontologist Joseph Leidy) which was Greek for “body cavity”. The name change reported occurred n the 1970′s, and since then we have referred to it as Allosaurus. 

It probably shouldn’t be so surprising to me that Allosaurus was almost constantly losing and replacing its’ own teeth, so often that it would probably be a strain on any living or nonliving creature besides a creature built to do so. However, I believe this to be a tell tale sign that the Allosaurus had relatively, if not extremely weak teeth (in comparison to other dinosaurs). The rate at which the replacement teeth would’ve been knocked or broken out, thus calling for further replacement teeth, would’ve most likely signaled that the teeth were weak and easily broken, damaged, or lost for whatever reason. To that end, the Allosaurus also sported a weak bite, similar to the living “big cat” felines of our world. The bite force of the Allosaurus would’ve been in the ball park of 200 kg, which is shockingly weak when compared to many other top carnivores of the entire Meosozoic.

Despite the apparently weak reality, Allosaurus is still a top carnivore, coming in at being one of the largest carnivores to exist during its’ time, and one of the most impressive. It is also guess-timated that Allosaurus didn’t travel in packs, although if I had to guess at it, I would suggest that they most likely did to some extent, even if it was occasional. Either way, the Allosaurus was one of two things: a voracious and frightening pack hunter using cunning and the wits of a group of minds to its’ advantage, or a solitary hunter relying on nothing more than it’s senses and ability to determine what fights it wanted to pick. 

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