If you could have put a thermometer on a T. rex, it would have read almost the same as yours.
For the first time, scientists have directly calculated their body temperature by analyzing the enamel of three fossil teeth from 66 million years ago.
The result? An average of 36.3 degrees, very similar to ours and that of today’s large mammals such as elephants.
Furthermore, its body was considerably warmer than the environment in which it lived and than the crocodilians in the same ecosystem.
This does not in itself prove that it had a metabolism like ours, but it does provide a new clue.
And it was all hidden in a few milligrams of polish.
Source: Randon J. Flores et al. , The body temperature of Tyrannosaurus rex. Sci. Adv. 12, eaeb7653(2026). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aeb7653
