The Posture of Tyrannosaurus rex: Why Do Student Views Lag Behind the Science?

ABSTRACT

Today's students were born well after the dramatic scientific reinterpretations of theropod dinosaur stance and metabolism of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yet, if asked to draw a picture of Tyrannosaurus rex, most of these students will likely draw an animal with an upright, tail-dragging posture, remarkably like the original 1905 description of this famous dinosaur. We documented this phenomenon by asking college (n = 111) and elementary to middle school students (n = 143) to draw pictures of T. rex . On each drawing, we measured the angle of the spine from a horizontal surface. An average angle of 50–60° was found in drawings from all ages, which is within about 5° of the 1905 posture at 57°. This is in striking contrast to images created by modern dinosaur scientists, which average between 0 and 10°. In an effort to explain this pattern, we measured T. rex images in a wide variety of popular books, most of them for children, published from the 1940s to today. Since 1970, a gradually increasing proportion has represented T. rex with a more horizontal back (lower tail angle). Thus, popular books, while slow to change, cannot entirely account for this pattern. The erect T. rex stance continues, however, to dominate other areas of popular experience, such as toys and cartoons, which most American children encounter early in life. We hypothesize that older-style images long embedded in pop culture could lead to cultural inertia, in which outdated scientific ideas are maintained in the public consciousness long after scientists have abandoned them.

Key words::

• dinosaurs
• paleoart
• preconceptions
• cultural inertia
• reconstruction
• draw-a-scientist

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to Emily Butler for assistance with data collection and analysis; to Peter Dodson, John Hutchinson, and Samantha Sands for discussion and comments on previous drafts of the manuscript; to Julie Libarkin, Karen McNeal, Brian White, and three anonymous reviewers for reviews of the manuscript; to Frank Straub, Samantha Sands, and Hugo Valencia for help in data collection; to Kristine Haglund, Kirk Johnson, and Jere Lipps for information about their institutions' T. rex collection; to Andrea Kreuzer for assistance with data analysis and illustrations; to Elizabeth Stricker for help with final illustrations; and to Maya Weltman-Fahs for final editorial assistance.

FIGURE 1: Reconstructed images of T. rex in the older, tail-dragging posture. (A) The original reconstruction of T. rex, drawn by W.D. Matthew. From Osborn (1905). (B) Model reconstruction of two T. rex skeletons in fighting poses. From Osborn (1913). (C) T. rex from the original 1933 motion picture King Kong. © 2012 Turner Entertainment; used by permission. (D) T. rex painting by Charles R. Knight (1946). Used by permission of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. (E) T. rex painting by Charles R. Knight. Used by permission of the American Museum of Natural History.

FIGURE 2: Charles R. Knight's famous painting “Tyrannosaurus Facing Triceratops” (ca. 1930), showing T. rex in both the traditional erect posture (background) and a more horizontal posture with tail off the ground (foreground). © 2012 The Field Museum, no. CK9T; used by permission.

FIGURE 3: Reconstructed images of T. rex in the newer more horizontal posture. (A) T. rex as depicted in the first Jurassic Park film (1993). © 2012 Universal Studios; used by permission. (B) T. rex as depicted by artist Gregory Paul. From Paul (1988). © 2012 Gregory S. Paul; used by permission. (C) T. rex posture as sketched by Hutchinson and Gatesey (2006). © 2012 Nature Publishing Group; used by permission. (D) T. rex as depicted in the King Kong (2005). © 2012 Universal Studios; used by permission. (E) Reconstruction of T. rex by Matt Smith. From Farlow et al. (1995). Used by permission of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

FIGURE 4: Old and new versions of T. rex from lines of realistic plastic figurines produced for two major natural history museums. (A, B) Produced for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History by Safari, Ltd., (A) 1988, (B) 1998. (C, D) Produced for the Natural History Museum, London, (C) 1977 by Invicta Plastics, (D) ca. 2006 by Toy Way. Collection of the Paleontological Research Institution.

FIGURE 5: Outline sketches of the two extreme reconstructed postures of T. rex , showing how spinal angle was measured.

FIGURE 6: Drawings by undergraduate students at Ithaca College in response to a request to “Draw a picture of Tyrannosaurus rex .”

FIGURE 7: Drawings by precollege students visiting the Museum of the Earth in response to a request to “Draw a picture of Tyrannosaurus rex .”

FIGURE 8: Representative images of T. rex from popular books. (A) From Frost (1956). Used by permission of Maxton Publishers, Inc. (B) From Geis (1960). Used by permission of Grosset and Dunlap, A Division of Penguin Young Readers Group, A member of Penguin Group (USA). (C) From Ravielli (1963). © 2012 Anthony P. Ravielli. Used by permission of the Ravielli family. (C, D) From Rey (2001). © 2012 Luis V. Rey. Used by permission. (E) Painting of T. rex based on Sue, by John Gurche (2000). © 2012 The Field Museum. Used by permission.

FIGURE 9: Representative contemporary toys and other merchandise featuring reconstructions of T. rex in the older, tail-dragging posture. (A) Common cookie cutter, ca. 1995. (B) Plush Barney puppet by Dakin, 1992. (C) Plastic baby bib by Crocodile Creek, ca. 2005. (D) Plush Tyrannosaurus rex by Melissa and Doug, ca. 2005. (E) Toy Story's Rex figurine by Hasbro, ca. 1995. All items in the collection of the Paleontological Research Institution.

FIGURE 10: Stance angle for T. rex drawings by Ithaca College students (median = 54, median absolute deviation [MAD] = 16) and by a variety of precollege students (ages 5–15) (median = 46, MAD = 16). Very few of the drawings in either group depict a modern interpretation, but there was a higher proportion of these in the precollege students.

FIGURE 11: Stance angle for T. rex drawings plotted against age of precollege student participants from school groups. There was no statistically significant relationship between age and posture angle (n = 143, R ² = 0.0044).

FIGURE 12: Results of analysis of spinal angle of images of T. rex reconstructions in popular dinosaur books from 1941 to 2006 compared with angles measured from student drawings and toys and merchandise, 1960s–present.

FIGURE 13: Distribution of stance angle in T. rex non-book items in time interval before 1970 (before scientific reinterpretation) (median = 46, MAD = 11.5), in 1970s (median = 44, MAD = 8), and since the 1970s (median = 40.5, MAD = 16). There is no change in the first 10 years after the reinterpretation. The interval after the 1970s does have objects with low angles consistent with a modern interpretation, but this interval also contains large numbers of items with traditional stances; the median angle is less than 4 degrees less than that in the 1970s.

FIGURE 14: Distribution of stance angle in T. rex in books in time interval before 1970 (before scientific reinterpretation) (median = 52, MAD = 4), in 1970s (median = 44, MAD = 6), and since the 1970s (median = 26, MAD = 13). While some books since 1980 still have upright stances, most have stances more consistent with current scientific interpretations with low posture angle.

FIGURE 15: (A) Dino bath squirt toys by Battat, ca. 2003 (B) Yummy Dino Buddies Chicken Breast Nuggets, ca. 2007.

TABLE I: Demographic data of participating school groups.¹