A tyrannosaur grin is magnetic.

We don’t have to look any further than how we talk about the tyrant lizard. Teeth the size of bananas - or railroad spikes, for a deep-driving analogy - and an incredible bite force capable of pulverizing bone. The mouth that roars. The teeth that catch. The maw that devours. We tease the tiny arms of T. rex almost to cover our fixation with the dinosaur’s terrible jaws.

Tyrannosaurus was not a Maastrichtian Chain Chomp, of course. The dinosaur’s head didn’t chatter and slide around on its own. There was a whole animal behind it, propelled on large, incredibly-powerful legs supported by broad, spreading toes tipped with curved claws. The feet that make the thunderous stomps for one of Jurassic Park’s most iconic and referenced shots.

Part of composing Tyrant Lizard Queen was thinking of Snaggletooth, my story’s central T. rex, as a complete animal. I could see her moving as I wrote the chapters, at various times strolling slow, tearing clods of soil in a trot, tilting back to sit, bracing and crouching while bellowing at a rival, the simultaneous living and long-dead animal in my head. And part of what I envisioned for her was putting those stompy feet to use.

The crew of Jurassic Park already filmed what I had in mind for the ‘93 film. When Rexy, free and perhaps a little delirious with the scent of possibility, steps to hold down the underside of the park tour Jeep. The step steadies the unfortunately mechanical prey, allowing her jaws to get to work. Just like a bird of prey.

We don’t really know if T. rex pinned struggling prey like this, or used their mighty feet to push as their jaws pulled carrion away from a carcass. The little research we have on T. rex legs mostly centers on speed and agility. (David Krauss and John Robinson briefly considered how T. rex might have used their feet for prey capture in their ceratopsid “cow-tipping” paper, but it’s more an aside than anything.) But they must have. The biomechanics seem to demand it. All that jaw power, all that musculature to pull hide and muscle back, to wrench out a bone, to stay upright during a face-biting fight, all of these things required strong, broad feet. Add stomping being a traditional dinosaur trait and some personal experience from the leather community, and of course Snaggletooth enjoys a little trampling.

Tyrant Lizard Queen will be coming your way on October 27th, 2026.

Scribblings

• How do we keep Deep Time? Rocks, glaciers, and trees can all help. For SIERRA’s summer “seedlings” edition for younger readers, I wrote a brief explainer about ways we tell time over immense scales.

• Last week’s new article, on snaggletooth sharks and their remarkable dental construction, is up on my blog.

• Images of hot-blooded dinosaurs didn’t go broad in 1969 when Deinonychus was named. It took years for the new dinosaurs to reach the public, as Dinosaurs: A First Film reminds us in this week’s I Want My DinoTV.

• For my premium subscribers, a return to narrative paleo with a short piece on giant Miocene thresher sharks. Imagine a thresher the size of a great white with serrated teeth and you get the idea.

  Upgrade now

Stomping to a City Near You

• On July 17th I’ll be at Solid State Books in Washington, DC to help hype the crowd for John Wiswell’s new book The Dragon Has Some Complaints! If you like dragons, dinosaurs, and dinosaur-like dragons, you’ll want to come.

• On July 28th I’ll be joining the Snug Books nonfiction club to talk about When the Earth Was Green. You can grab tickets for the event here.

• East Coast fans, I’ll have some book tour dates coming soon. Current stops include Baltimore, MD; Lewes, DE; NY, NY; and Cambridge, MA. Stay tuned.

Ear Perks

• Juneteenth, just like Pride, has a complicated history between its image, its political recognition, and what it’s really about. Régine Jean-Charles writes in Ms., “What Juneteenth has reaffirmed for me is the importance of centering Black joy, people, activists, creatives, work, art, freedom and all Black everything more than ever.”

• The first showing already happened, but, if you’re in Seattle, you’ve still got a chance to see Frankenhooker: A New Wave Musical. And if you’ve never seen the Troma classic, Halloween can start anytime.

• Tomoki Misato’s My Little Goat is a stunning work of stop-motion.