T. Rex Unearthed: Professor Reveals Recent Findings During Upcoming UA ALLELE Lecture

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Tyrannosaurus rex, that dominant dinosaur of pop-culture fame, continues to surprise and confound paleontologists.

In an upcoming lecture, Dr. Mary Higby Schweitzer, professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, will fill in audiences on some of these unexpected finds regarding T. Rex during the next ALLELE lecture at The University of Alabama.

The lecture, titled “T. Rex Under the Microscope: A New Look at an Old Dinosaur,” will be at 7:30 p.m.  Thursday, Jan. 20, in the Biology Building Auditorium on the UA campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Schweitzer will discuss one particular Tyrannosaurus rex, officially named MOR 1125 but dubbed B-rex after its discoverer, and the breakthroughs this particular dinosaur has provided regarding dinosaur physiology and evolutionary relationships, as well as its implications for the preservation of biological molecules.

MOR 1125 is represented by multiple bones (comprising about 60 percent of the skeleton) that were scattered across a small geographic area (about 200 feet).

The presence of an unusual bone type that was thought to indicate a reproducing female caused Schweitzer and colleagues to look closer, and the controversial results were published in the March 2005 edition of Science magazine. Her results added evidence to theories that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Schweitzer earned a doctorate in biology at Montana State University and is a recipient of a Packard Foundation Fellowship. Her presentation is the third in the 2010-2011 Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution, known as ALLELE. The lecture series, in its fifth year, is supported by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences and the departments of anthropology, biological sciences, geological sciences, philosophy and psychology.

For more information on the lecture series, click here.

The ALLELE lecture series is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.