T. rex - carnivore or lowly herbivore?

 

Apparently some paleontologists think that finding a T. rex's tooth in the tail bones of another dinosaur weighs heavily on the side of those who think T. rex was a mighty carnivore rather than a scavenger of carcasses.  Well, you hate to disappoint them, but another find calls both views into question.  Here's a T. rex tooth deeply embedded in the seed cone of a cycad lending evidence to the much less popular hypothesis that T. rex was an herbivore whose teeth were adapted to prying open big seed cones like a can opener.  It will be hard to dismiss this idea completely with the evidence at hand.  So sorry fellows.  It stands to reason that at a time of mighty plants, the herbivores were mighty too.  Some of the large cycad seed cones were some of the most concentrated packages of food available in Jurassic Park, the concessions stand not withstanding.  But this is the way it is in science.  You have to go where the evidence points you.  Humility and an understanding of the scholarly process prevented the discoverer of T. rex herbivory from rushing off to the popular press with this long before it could be published in a scientific venue, but now that the "carnivorists" have jumped the gun, it seemed that a continued silence was being unduly modest. 

Cycad "flowering"

A check through the glasshouse found a number of our small cycads coning, mostly species of Zamia.  Here's a small specimen of Z. pumila showing the full display of seed cones at the time of pollination.  Not too much to see, but enough.  Note that near the top of the cone, the cone scales, aka megasporophylls, have separated a bit leaving a narrow zig-zaggy opening around the top of the cone.  Similar openings are found further down the cone too.  Cycads are very ancient seed plants, more ferny than other gymnosperms, and while ancient, they turn out to be insect pollinated.  Small beetles carry pollen from other plants bearing pollen cones to plants bearing seed cones where they carry pollen inside the cone where it makes contact with pollen drops and gets pulled inside the ovules (aka megasporangia, aka immature seeds).  After this pollination period, the cone closes until the seeds are mature and ready to disperse.  Pretty exciting, huh!