Tyrannosaurus Rex Complete Rooted Tooth

Tyrannosaurus rex's five foot long skull was packed with 60 teeth and featured a bone-crushing bite force of nearly 13,000 pounds (5,900 kg) per square inch, the strongest of any terrestrial animal, other than its ancestor, Gorgosaurus (see lot 1). In comparison to other carnivorous theropods, T. rex teeth are proportionately huge. Robust and thick enameled crowns strengthened dozens of teeth with serrations on two different edges like double-sided steak knives. The unrivaled power of this 40 foot (12.2 m) long apex predator allowed it to hunt virtually every large dinosaur in its environment, including Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, Ornithomimus, Pachycephalosaurus, Edmontosaurus, and even other tyrannosaurs.

The full T. rex tooth offered here is especially interesting as it exhibits a developmental stage in tyrannosaurid tooth replacement, preserving the impression of the socket for the succeeding, unerupted tooth.