T. rex could have been 70 per cent bigger

There's no denying that Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the biggest dinosaurs to ever walk the planet. But how big could this dinosaur get? In a new investigation, researchers attempted to answer that. Palaeontologists from the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa estimated that the largest T. rex may have tipped the scales at a whopping 15,000 kilograms, making it heavier than an average school bus, which weighs about 11,000 kilograms.

- JENNIFER NALEWICKI

Currently, the heftiest T. rex on record is a specimen nicknamed 'Scotty', which weighed 8,870 kilograms when it was alive, about as much as 6.5 Volkswagen Beetles. According to the new research, the largest T. rex "would have been about 70 per cent bigger" than Scotty, said Jordan Mallon, a research scientist and head of palaeobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature. "That almost doubles the size of T. rex," Mallon adds.