https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221025-why-did-t-rex-have-such-puny-arms
T. rex is almost as famous for its withered little arms as for its enormous teeth – they’re so totally out of proportion, they almost look like they’ve been plucked from another species and simply stuck on, in a throwback to the hilarious blunders of bone assembly from the 19th Century (such as the time Stegosaurus‘ signature diamond-shaped back plates were added to its tail instead).
“You can look at his arms and say, well, these are ridiculous. They’re so different than anything around today, what is the point,” says L J Krumenacker, a palaeontologist at Idaho State University.
With arms that might measure just 3ft (0.9m) long on a 45-ft (13.7m) individual, this formidable carnivore’s hilariously small appendages have been a source of intense speculation ever since they were discovered – despite decades of studying them, to this day no one has any idea what they’re for.