Getting Lip from Tyrannosaurus Rex

Before the predominance of profanity, people would sternly warn someone not to give them any lip. Basically it meant not to be disrespectful, but could also mean to stop talking, or other things. Or get mouthy. Tyrannosaurus rex has been portrayed as giving lip. It may be literal.

Like so many other things in paleontology, further studies result in rethinking how critters looked and sometimes how they acted. After examining bones and teeth, some paleontologists think that T. rex may have had lips.

T. rex with lips image generated with AI at Bing

I told the AI art generator to give it human lips because reasons and stuff.

Lizard lips to go with lizard hips... Interesting that it took decades for people to catch on to the idea of dinosaurs having lips, since lips are useful. It is an interesting development in paleontology, but there's no way of knowing if the idea is right — unless an exceptionally well-preserved fossil or mummified body was found. That may not be such a surprise the way things are going. Soft tissues, excellent preservation...those things testify of a young Earth, not millions of years.

Every child’s favorite dinosaur is getting a face lift. Instead of the snarling, screaming mouth full of bared teeth seen in most movies, T. rex‘s mouth had lips, some scientists now say. Whether it kissed its mate or not is too hard to say without living ones to observe, but that idea would have made good fodder for comics. “My, what big lips you have, grandma.” “The better to kiss you with, child.”

. . .

At The Conversation, co-author of the paper in Science Mark P. Witton of the University of Portsmouth shares some of the lines of evidence in T. rex bones and teeth that led him and his colleagues to their revision of the monster’s makeup.

The entire article is found at "Gummy Rex Did Lip Service."