A Tooth Frozen in Time: Scientists Find the World’s Best Proof of a T. Rex Attack!
Quick Summary
Scientists have been studying a remarkable fossil — a dinosaur skull with a T. Rex tooth still stuck inside it. The 66-million-year-old fossil is on display at a museum in Montana. A new study says it is some of the clearest proof ever found of exactly how a T. Rex attacked its prey.
What Happened?
Back in 2005, fossil hunters found a nearly complete skull of an Edmontosaurus in eastern Montana. Edmontosaurus was a large plant-eating dinosaur sometimes called a “duck-billed” dinosaur because of the wide, flat shape of its snout.
The skull is now on display at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. But one detail makes this skull unlike almost any other ever found: a broken T. Rex tooth is still stuck right in the dinosaur’s nose bone.
Think of it this way. Imagine biting into a hard candy so powerfully that your tooth snapped off and stayed stuck inside it. Now imagine that candy was a dinosaur’s face — and the bite happened 66 million years ago.
Researchers from Montana State University and the University of Alberta spent time carefully studying the skull. They used CT scans — the same kind of spinning X-ray cameras doctors use at hospitals — to look deep inside the bone without touching it. The scans showed exactly how deeply the tooth had plunged into the bone, and at what angle.
The tooth was embedded right in the front of the snout. This tells scientists the two animals were facing each other head-on when the T. Rex bit. The skull also has up to 23 other bite marks on it from the same encounter.
The bone around the tooth showed no sign of healing. That means the Edmontosaurus either died from this bite or was already dead when it happened. The researchers concluded the most likely story is that the T. Rex bit its prey to deliver a killing blow, and then ate the rest of the body. Only the skull remained.
The study was published in a science journal called PeerJ.
Why Does It Matter?
Paleontologists — scientists who study ancient life — have long debated whether T. Rex was mostly a hunter or mostly a scavenger. A scavenger finds and eats animals that are already dead. A hunter chases and kills its own food.
This fossil adds powerful new evidence that T. Rex was a real, active hunter. Finding a tooth still embedded in a skull is extremely rare. Bite marks on bones are common, but a tooth actually lodged inside the bone? Scientists say that has almost never been seen before.
Every piece of evidence like this helps scientists paint a clearer picture of what life was really like for these ancient giants, 66 million years ago.
Big Words
- Edmontosaurus — a large, plant-eating dinosaur that lived alongside T. Rex about 66 million years ago; it had a wide, flat snout like a duck’s bill
- Fossil — the preserved remains or traces of an ancient living thing, turned to stone over millions of years
- CT scan — a special medical camera that takes hundreds of X-ray pictures from different angles and combines them into a 3D image, like slicing a loaf of bread and looking at every slice
- Paleontologist — a scientist who studies ancient life forms using fossils and other clues left behind in rocks
- Embedded — stuck firmly inside something, like a splinter in a finger
Fun Fact
A T. Rex’s teeth could grow up to 12 inches long — about as long as a ruler! They were also constantly replaced, so if a T. Rex lost a tooth, a new one would grow in its place. Losing one tooth during a powerful attack was no big deal for the predator!
Think About It
If you were a paleontologist and could study any one extinct creature up close, which would you choose — and what one question would you most want to answer about it?
Sources
- ScienceDaily — This Dinosaur Fossil Captures the Final Moments of a T. Rex Attack (July 14, 2026)
- Popular Science — A Tyrannosaurus tooth embedded in dinosaur skull tells a violent story
- Discover Magazine — A 66-Million-Year-Old Tyrannosaurus Tooth Embedded in an Edmontosaurus Skull Reveals a Violent Final Encounter
- PeerJ — Behavioral implications of an embedded tyrannosaurid tooth and associated tooth marks on an articulated skull of Edmontosaurus from the Hell Creek Formation, Montana (Wyenberg-Henzler & Scannella, 2026)