Relevent to the T-rex, a septic bite would let it take down critters much bigger then it.
So it would have to be an animal small enough and quick enough the T-rex doesn’t get a chance to bite at all. Either that or one with a strong immune system. Assuming the bacteria could infect modern animals.
Question, how likely is it 65 million year old tooth nasties would be suited to infect modern animals?
New, conflicting theories about dinosaurs come up on a regular basis, and it’s hard to know which, if any, are accurate.
IF the traditional view of the T. Rex as a vicious predator is accurate, it might well be the most lethal land animal of all time. BUT… there are more than a few paleontologists who’ve suggested it was primarily an overgrown carrion eater. If that’s true, it may not have been as aggressive as our favorite movies suggest, and there MAY be latter-day animals who could fight it off, or whom the T. Rex would elect not to mess with.
There are any number of incredibly venomous and poisonous creatures in Australia that could probably fell a T-Rex quite easily, although it would depend on a lot of biological and circulatory data for the Tyrannosaur that we just don’t have.
Perhaps we could go for some kind of Tag-Team match? Maybe a Portugeuse Man-O-War Jellyfish and a Taipan Snake, or a Mexican Staring Frog Of Southern Sri Lanka and a Yowie…
Douglas Adams was a science fiction author, not a scientst. Moreover the book you quote is over 15 years old and hideously out of date.
Komodo dragons don’t just bite prey and wait for it to die from infetion. Despite being very large Komodo dragons are monitors, and like all monitors they are venomous. They rely on a specifically produced chemical cocktail in their venom to subdue prey.
Although any animal bitten by a dragon that manages to survive both the bite and the venom will likely succumb to infection their is no evidence that the infection is anything but an accident, and no evidence that it plays any role in prey capture.
The OP states that T-Rexes were speedy creatures. I don’t think we know that.
So, is there any reason to think that modern mammals, for example, would fall prey to a T-rex? I suspect most could outrun that dino, and probably wouldn’t be caught off guard so easily. T-rexes evolved to deal with the animals living at the time. It might be that if you transported one to modern times, it wouldn’t be able to deal with the animals it would encounter.
Article from Physics Today: How Fast Could Tyrannosaurus rex Run? Smaller dinos have fossilized footprints, which permit some guesswork. For the T-Rex, less accurate anatomical study is required.
Estimates range as high as 45mph, but more recent work tends to support an upper bound of about 25mph, perhaps 10-25mph.
If, as others have posted, we allow species that may have become only recently extinct, and a shallow-water aquatic battlefield is acceptable, then I predict Carcharodon megalodon to win in a first round KO. Some scientists argue that this megatooth shark may have lived as recently as 10-15,000 years ago (1.2 – 24 mya is more substantiated). On a recent jaunt to our local marine museum, I was able to hold and compare a Megatooth shark tooth to that of adult Great White – the difference is staggering. I for one would be reluctant to stick my toe into any body of water likely to harbor a fish that is known to snack on large whales, T-rex should be just as cautious.
It’s not an unaided modern creature, but this question brings to mind the climax of the 1960 movie Dinosaurus! (Yes, the exclamation point was part of the title). A low-budget dinosaur flick which used a lot of short cuts (like rod-puppet shots when they could get away with it), but at least did feature stop-motion dinosaurs (the scenes were re-used in TV shows for a dozen years thereafter).
It was a cheapie, but the climax was awesome – the Goodf Guy takes on the rampaging T. Rex by getting into a steam shovel and duking it out with the beast, eventually knocking it into the ocean, where it essentially freezes.
It’s a great idea – the Steam Shovel puts him almost on a par with the T. Rex, but it’s open enough that he’s vulnerable as well. I have a strong feeling that James Cameron saw this flick as a kid, and it influenced his choice for the climactic last battle in Aliens.
By the way, it’s not a T Rex, but Harryhausen’s “Ymir” from 20 Million Miles to Earth was about the same size, and bipedal. It had a run-in with an elephant (see poster):
http://www.scifilm.org/reviews/20million.html
The Ymir won, but it got a “run for its money”. Besides, the YMIR used its hands, which the T. Rex wouldn’t get much mileage out of. The T. Rex would have its teeth, and it’d be interesting to se if tusks or teeth prevailed.
:smack:
How could I forget? Harryhausen has a T rex battle an elephant in The Valley of Gwangi. Wasn’t as good as in 20MMtE, though. The elephant still loses.
