The T. rex Lip Debate is Over!

Finally, a paper looking at multiple lines of evidence regarding dinosaur lips is out, and seems pretty conclusive!
Read the Paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
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[@godslaughter]

I am not gonna lie to you, birds DO have lips, but not at the front of their mouths because their dentary and maxilla are covered in keratin. They still have lips in the corners of their mouths and as long as we don't get something that contradicts it, I'm gonna avidly keep giving non-avian dinosaurs bird-like rictuses. Bird lips are very flexible, it's always so fascinating to study them when dealing with some corpses.

[@catpoke9557]

The keratin is also shaped like lips in most birds. I don't know why more people don't point this out, but the beak isn't flat. The top 'lip' overlaps the bottom one in most birds, and if they had teeth, they'd be covered by that lip. Also, maybe I'm crazy, but I'm pretty sure I see lips on the borealopelta mummy fossil. And I think it's weird for people to assume that other dinosaurs had lips, but not theropods. If you ask me, that assumption just shows that they are deciding based on how cool it looks, not how accurate it is. The only dinosaurs I've seen depicted lipless is theropods, and on the rare occasion, sauropods. But usually those are depicted with lips. I really think this displays a real bias in how people depict dinosaurs. Cool sharp teeth should be flaunted in lipless glory, and boring dull teeth should be hidden away by gums and lips. But that's not scientific at all.

[@patreekotime4578]

@@catpoke9557 same as the most common argument against feathers... it doesnt look cool or scary. Idk, but the idea of a 16 foot tall eagle sounds prettty heckin scary to me.

[@zabijavak2329]

yeah i see it all the time when my birds bite me

[@Roboticus_Prime_RC]

@@patreekotime4578 I have never once seen someone make the "feathers aren't scary" argument. I've only seen it as a strawman to deflect when people point out the scaly skin impressions found of the T-Rex.

[@MastodonMann]

Time to be a menace and give this information to people to disturb them

[@patreekotime4578]

Whats funny is that many of us grew up with depictions of dinosaurs with lips. In the early 80s most books and media that I encountered were full of art from the 1920s-1960s (presumably because it was out of copyright) and those typically showed dinosaurs as giant lizards... complete with lips. It wasnt until Jurassic Park and the tidal wave of dino renaissance depictions popularized the toothy look which always felt a bit weird IMO.

[@youtubestudiosucks978]

Dinosaurs didnt have dentist so some might had gotten an overbite

[@TheMightyN]

Indeed. However, the distribution of "lips" wasn't offset to trend. Many theropods in Jurassic Park (not Jurassic World) developed traits where the lips size varied extensively--the Coelurosaurians fairing in diversity where the Spinosaurus and Dilophosaurus were in the middle ground.

[@JurassicReptile]

The raptors and dilophosaurus didn’t have teeth that stuck out so it was only T.Rex without lips in the first film.

[@TheMightyN]

@@JurassicReptile Nope. Observing the portions of Jurassic's marketing resourced obviously brought people to view it as such. But anyone--with a trained memory--whom rewatches the first film, will notice the animatronic of the Dilo has exposed teeth; consumers influenced by the slew of marketing depicting the _Dilophosaurus_ in favor of its colorful frill less likely noticed this. Even to the trained eye's observation, the most accurate JP Dilophosaur products (busts, maquettes, etc.) suggest the teeth pass the jaw margin or arrangement limits the full closing of the mouth--enough for them to be exposed.

[@Qbliviens]

To be fair, most of the dinosaurs in jurassic Park do have lips! Just not the T. rex

[@sampagano205]

I don't care what the science says, I'm going to die on the hill of t Rex having extremely impressive and movable lips specifically adapted for kissing.

[@blaustein_autor]

That's just common sense. Evolution can't keep you from hugging *and* kissing!

[@Jopekos]

So you are dumb, be happy with your ignorance.

[@IMADINOSAURNOTABIRD]

BoT. Rex

[@soxpeewee]

Kiss my t Rex

[@Smokkedandslammed]

Momma said T Rex always kissin cause they arms too short to hold hands!

[@quantumpalmtree]

now imagine a world where dinosaurs get lip injections because they discovered vanity with time

[@hanselmansell7555]

T-Sex

[@beeeeeeeeeeg]

nahh💀💀

[@johnsamu]

Besides big lips also big boobs and a big ass, quite a "feast"for the eyes. The way things are going now with new discoveries it might even become reality. Remember how Spinosaurus has changed over the past few years.

[@quantumpalmtree]

@@beeeeeeeeeeg The Californicus Kardashianausorus

[@endel12]

Duck-lipped dinosaurs

[@alioramus1637]

I keept saying it and fighting with people. Lips are the norm in tetrapods. Exposed teeth is usually a derived feature, evolved for a specific purpose.

[@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess]

Which specific purposes? That makes no sense

[@necroseus]

​@@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess In crocs, that purpose it to allow water to leave their mouths while still retaining whatever food is inside, so far as I am aware.

[@necroseus]

I can't fix my spelling mistake because your name is too long to see that section of my comment on mobile xD. Oh well!

[@keepcalmlovedinosaurs8934]

I'm an author. And its really frustrating when you find out new data about certain dinosaur anatomy [spinosaurus and dinosaur vocalizations e.g.] you have to rewrite whole chapters. For the past two years I was with the lipped theropod notion. Keep up the good work man! 😎👍

[@geckoraptor9397]

I saw a biology schoolbook from 2017 and there was information about dinosaurs from 1950 everything was outdated af 🤦

[@Dramn_]

@@geckoraptor9397 almost all schoolbooks have information that is out of date, some of it is INSANELY bad lol

[@treystephens6166]

We will never know for certain.

[@garyhenshaw7138]

​@@treystephens6166 only true statement I've read

[@a.nonimus6705]

Do you write fiction or nonfiction? I'm not familiar with much dinosaur fiction, seems like it'd be a difficult thing to write.

[@beerasaurus]

Who wouldn’t want lips as kissable as Tyrannosaurus?

[@jeffreygao3956]

Only if you're another Tyrannosaurus and you're looking forward to having children.

[@demilholokoOFICIAL]

​@@jeffreygao3956 🤨?

[@jeffreygao3956]

@@demilholokoOFICIAL Tyrannosaurus mating.

[@demilholokoOFICIAL]

@@jeffreygao3956 ok

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

> It probably isn't over. Though it deffinitively has been reinforced

[@RaptorChatter]

That's fair. I think the evidence prevented in this paper though is going to be pretty hard to disprove in any meaningful way

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

@@RaptorChatter Yes, but there's some aspects that are likely to draw criticism, such as the very small sample size of the study of the enamel's histology.

[@randomuser12237]

​@@miquelescribanoivars5049 Thank you for being ony sane one who admitted this.

[@daintybeigli]

The uncovered teeth of crocs seem to be more towards the exception than the rule. I appreciate when you discuss ethical issues! Scientists can be as problematic as any other group of humans.

[@FirstDagger]

Goes to show how modern crocodiles aren't the living fossiles they were made out to be initially.

[@RaptorChatter]

Glad to know it's appreciated!

[@juanyusee8197]

​@@FirstDagger The bizarreness of modern crocodiles is underappreciated by most honestly.

[@minutemansam1214]

@@FirstDagger Honestly crocodilians as a group aren't even that old. Birds are an older clade. Crocodilians only date to about 90 million years ago. Heck, the famous Sarcosuchus wasn't even a crocodilian but a more distantly related kind of crocodyliform.

[@nunyadeelings8292]

​@FirstDagger I think people are unknowingly referring more to crocodylomorphs than they are to crocodilians specifically. Crocodylomorphs in general are really old. The entire group is over 2 times older than the crocodilians and also includes them. It'd be kind of like saying "humans aren't the living fossils we know them as" when people are referring to mammalia as a whole, and not specifically genus homo.

[@carlorielmendez6505]

Imagine if the guys that hated feathered dinosaurs a few years back used the same argument with dino lips as "not scary like they used to in the old movies" logic. Leave those guys in Komodo island and let's see if they last a week among those giants without pissing their pants.

[@Aethuviel]

Or crocodile monitors. They have much, much larger teeth than a Komodo dragon, and even though they don't look that large, they could actually kill a person through sheer blood loss.

[@petrairene]

So, if lips keep teeth moist, and therefor the contemporary crocs don't have them because they are aquatic, did terrestrial crocs in the past develop lips? After all multiple lines of crocs became secondarily terrestrial.

[@nicolassenmartin1018]

That's the opposite : multiple lineages of crocodilomorphs became semi aquatic. Crocs came out first as terrestrial animals and likely originally had lips. However, with their lifestyle ane hunting technic as snap feeders, they probably reduced lips and so on until now. Technically, crocs kinda still have lips but it doesn't cover their whole dentition : the flesh around are gums covered by skin and you can notice that the gum is pretty thick around those teeth. So it is likely that crocs started lipped and through time and on multiple occasions they may have lost lips.

[@RaptorChatter]

Maybe. With things like Kaprosuchus it's hard to say, because they had some notably large teeth, so may have just done the thicker enamel thing. I imagine someone will take a look at that at some point

[@petrairene]

@@nicolassenmartin1018 That's of course true. And the question is, were the secondarily terrestrial croc lines terrestrial for long enough so evolution had time to work it's magic and re-develop them. Also toothed whales didn't lose their lips despite 50 million years of aquatic life. How about mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs and other secondarily aquatic reptile lines? Did they have lips? So why did aquatic crocs lose their lips while the cetaceans did not?

[@nicolassenmartin1018]

@@petrairene it may be more related to their feeding strategy for that. Whales, Mosasaurs and Ichthyosaurs are active marine predators. Some may be more of snapping predators like Ichthyosaurs but the others use to be crunch feeders : taking deep bites in their preys (I exclude mysticete). For the case of Plesiosauria and most Sauropterygians those were potentially lipless though given their teeth morphology and feeding strategy. Also, we could use the new method developed by the scientist team on those animals to determine if those animals had lips or not.

[@LuisAldamiz]

I understood from the video that crocs can expose their teeth because they are heavily enameled (ivory-ish) and that acts as protection when outside water (which can be very long times, especially when hybernating in drought periods), so it's possible that crocodilians did not have lips, it depends on how thick the enamel was basically (same applies to elephant and boar tusks apparently).

[@nita7703]

Always love updates about old drama

[@maverick2560]

I wouldn't really call scientific debates "drama".

[@Mobius118]

@Maverick Considering how influenced scientific learning is influenced by politics and bias nowadays, it very much is drama

[@theargonianmercenary184]

There’s something perplexing about how up in arms some people can get about whether or not some dinosaurs had lips. People have literally purposed sauropods had TRUNKS for crying out loud! This seems like a small, small thing to get up in arms about, no matter what side you’re on.

[@ApexOceanPredator]

Honestly, that's not the craziest idea

[@WhatIsSanity]

I'm hardly a paleo enthusiast anymore and wasn't one for very long so I'm not up to date. All that said I haven't seen a single Sauropod skull with a potential attachment point for a trunk. What sauropods where people proposing had trunks?

[@phoebusapollo8365]

The difference is a lot of people grew up with the non-lipped look (specifically Jurassic Park) so there is a lot of nostalgia and good memories invested in dinosaurs not having lips. It’s why people get so heated about it.

[@theargonianmercenary184]

@@phoebusapollo8365 I had a feeling it was about something of that stripe, but I had my doubts considering the velociraptors in JP did have lips.

[@theargonianmercenary184]

@@WhatIsSanity it was a hypothesis proposed by Walter Coombs in 1975, but I agree that the evidence supporting this idea is pretty lacking. Even though Coombs was huge with regards to his findings relating to sauropods on land rather than in bodies of water, he also suggested sauropods nostrils resembled elephants or other mammals. The neck would have certainly made the trunk redundant, but even so, it’s just a crazy idea I threw out (though there are crazier ideas purposed, think the dinosaur sex-lakes or aliens being responsible for the K-Pg mass extinction).

[@sauraplay2095]

That’s interesting, and I always liked the look of lips.

[@gowzahr]

"Imagine needing lips to keep your teeth moist." -crocodilians

[@Kanyon85]

I remember having T-rex toys in the late 80s which were still depicted as standing upright, dragging their tails on the ground like a kangaroo. It's fascinating how science and biology is all connected.

[@BovineIntervention]

Sounds like just a shitty toy

[@jayconstantine5928]

Thankyou! That verifies my research on my Spinosaurus! I agonised over this, but after reading Mark Witton's Paeleoartist's Handbook, came down on the side of lips. I think he looks much better with them. (The Spinosaurus that is!)

[@hplovecraftcat]

​@Acceleration Quanta how tf do you know that? Are you a time traveler?

[@maverick2560]

@Acceleration Quanta Sources?

[@RaptorChatter]

Yeah, I really hope someone takes a look at some of the Baryonyx skulls in England and is able to make some of these inferences about Spinosaurids.

[@catpoke9557]

I always feel like the evidence points towards spinosaurids being lipless in the front and lipped in the back, but honestly, I think either depiction works. I'm not a paleontologist so I'm not very good at analyzing these things. As for other dinosaurs, though, so far they all seem fully lipped to me. Of course some particularly large teeth in certain species may or may not have protruded from the lips, like the tusks of pigs or the canines of tasmanian devils. Still, I believe they had lips over the whole mouth except where a beak would be.

[@classicgalactica5879]

How can you possibly hope to verify whether or not creatures which have been extinct for tens of millions of years did or did not have lips? Unless an impression of a theropods skull which had recently died is someday found, the lips or no lips debate will continue, unabated.

[@catherinehubbard1167]

I wonder if the extinct land crocs, which presumably spent little time in water, had lips to keep their teeth moist.

[@RaptorChatter]

Bold claim I'd love to see it backed up with a source.

[@maverick2560]

It's possible that semi-aquatic crocodilians and related animals lost lips over time, with lips potentially being ancestral to archosaurs, only being lost secondarily in certain groups. As mentioned in the paper, early terrestrial crocodylomorphs likely had lips as well, based on skull anatomy.

[@RaptorChatter]

Based on Hesperosuchus I'd expect they did have lips. Although with some, like Kaprosuchus, there were notably long teeth, so there's more argument there for them to have just had thicker enamel like other crocodylians

[@jessehunter362]

@Acceleration Quanta have you ever had a filling removed? You feel the pain of dry teeth *quickly*.

[@Dramn_]

@accelerationquanta5816 except they do. Try going with a completely dry mouth for a few days.

[@quinnalexander3825]

I can't believe people look at an Iguana or a Komodo Dragon and say "Oh yeah a lack of lips would be totally less threatening."

[@skybluskyblueify]

Could this mean that the sabre -toothed cats may have had their longest teeth covered by lips? What about the marsupial sabertooth Thylacosmilus?

[@RaptorChatter]

Thylacosmilus I would expect to have longer tooth coverings because the lower jaw has more area to support the structures. In Homotherium at least there was a paper last year which suggested maybe only the tips would be showing, and that they could have been kept damp by the lower lip tissue, and by residual saliva from the upper lip.

[@LuisAldamiz]

I was watching yesterday something about hippopotamuses and how those massive canines (and the also very threatening incisives protruding forward) get fully covered by the mouth when closed reminded me of sabertoothed felines (in reverse but anyhow). After watching this video I realized also that there's a reason why ivory is not made out of any tooth but only those that are exposed to the environment such as elephant or boar ones. So I'd go with the rule of thumb mentioned here: if it's not ivory-ish, it was inside the mouth most of the time.

[@scatman9166]

Depends on what sabre tooth we’re talking about. Smilodon likely didn’t have covered fangs, while the less extreme ones like Homotherium probably did similar to a clouded leopard

[@tjarkschweizer]

Remember that mammalian lips are unique among tetrapods. The upper lips often lap over the lover ones. This allows elongated teeth to poke out as can be seen in some small deer species.

[@TalenkauenTV]

Mammal lips are widely different from reptile ones. Mammalian saber teeth should not be something to consider in a dinosaur lip debate

[@petersmythe6462]

"Varanus Salvadorii" The best pet horror show for you.

[@dennismason3740]

Thank you, Ezekial. No derf theropods.

[@geckoraptor9397]

Also a bizare thing is that the jp rex didnt have lips there but the raptors did

[@robertjackson1813]

I dont agree. The tyrannosaur did have lips, but it did have exposed teeth.

[@dennismason3740]

I am officially calling this Rexy Lips Day.

[@dennismason3740]

@Dav Yx Yx - hey, corny isn't irrelevant!

[@romxxii]

Giving t Rex lips makes me think of komodo dragons.

[@karnewarrior]

This video brought to mind the image of a Tyrannosaur investigating an object using much more motile lips than one would expect, not unlike an ape might. Which is unlikely to be accurate, but is definitely a new sort of uncomfortable cute.

[@lostinthemesozoic]

I think lips on dinosaurs make them look more like a living, breathing animal :] but that's just my opinion I think that hadrosaurs with cheeks, and ceratopsians with cheeks, make them look real, too

[@nutyyyy]

So are crocs not living animals?

[@lostinthemesozoic]

@@nutyyyy Not what I meant m8

[@AnonningAnon]

​@@nutyyyy Crocs live in water half the times, so they don't need lips to moisten their teeth, to prevent them from rotting (same hypothesis is applied to Spino, ichty, etc).

[@Aethuviel]

Every land animal has lips covering the teeth, there is no reason theropods shouldn't have lips. Proponents of lipless theropods should take a look at the skulls of crocodile monitors and reticulated pythons, and imagine how paleo artists with no knowledge of snakes or lizards would depict them. Whether hadrosaurs and ceratopsians had cheeks is another matter, which has to do with how they used their teeth. If they chewed their food or just gobbled it up.

[@WarrenPeace007]

The easiest way to tell if birds have lips is to see if your local Chinese restaurant serves Birds’ Lips Soup

[@Symbiotian]

truly a Jurassic Park raptor smirking moment

[@The_Cosmic_Yog-Sothoth]

Looks like two major paleontologists Thomas Carr and Julien Benoit are "Completely unconvinced" by this new paper's findings. *The debate is not over.*

[@christianvaixco196]

👍

[@minutemansam1214]

The debate has basically been over for years. Lips is an ancestral condition for all tetrapods, I would argue all jawed vertebrates. So the null hypothesis is that dinosaurs had lips until proven otherwise. So it's on those who doubt they have lips to demonstrate their claims.

[@tjarkschweizer]

Thomas Carr. The guy who actually claimed that theropod and crocodilian jaw textures look anything alike. I feel like he lost his right to have a valid opinion on this subject.

[@The_Cosmic_Yog-Sothoth]

@@tjarkschweizer He's the world's foremost expert on tyrannosaurs. When you can claim something similar, come back to me. In the mean time, stop the plank act.

[@tjarkschweizer]

@@The_Cosmic_Yog-Sothoth I am not discrediting his expertise on Tyrannosaurs. I am specifically criticizing his claim of theropod and crocodile foramina looking similar enough to justify slapping a croc-smile on theropods. That was his argument in 2017 and can be refuted by simply looking at the jaws of these animal groups.

[@LordNezghul]

Plot twist: their tongues were large enough to cover the teeth.

[@emk7132]

I appreciate your content and also that you seem like a really nice guy

[@carlorielmendez6505]

There are mammals today that have exposed teeth without prolonged water dips. Boar tusks and that tiny fanged deer(ungulates are the biggest exception to the moisture requirement for enamel rule). In terms of prehistoric mammals, Smilodon tends to have very long sabers (6 inches) that have no evidence of being covered in skin. Homotherium though have evidence of enough skin material on their lower jaw to match their still huge but manageable 3-in fangs so they can still be using their lips, just the opposite side (this is how modern big cats keep their canines wet). Elephant ivory, it turns out, is mostly dentine with collagen fibers crisscrossing the structure lattice, so it doesn't need to get that prolonged moisture requirement.

[@fishfreak2001]

Crocodiles also replace their teeth through out their entire life. They don't have as much of anneed to preserve them like dinosaurs do.

[@JohnJohn-yl4ko]

I imagine T-Rex looking like a Pit Bull on two legs both so cute yet so terrifying

[@killarutahraptor4012]

You should see the Thomas Carr study about Daspleotosaurus to know more from the other side of the debate

[@fourleafclover2377]

Amazing talk loved this video what is the little tyrannosaur mini skeleton figure on the shelf to the left of the video I’d love one !!! ❤

[@aylakreelak]

I appreciate you addressing that there was an abusive environment for the students, always appreciate that kind of stuff

[@KnickKnacksPlasticPlanet]

Ok, prevailing science now thinks tyrannosaurus had lips - cool. Now, let's fight about whether it could snarl! That's kinda badass actually. 😊

[@TheBlackWarden420]

If dinosaurs, especially theropods, constantly lose their teeth and regrow them back during their lives, then they definitely don’t have lips because they didn’t mind losing the teeth in the first place.

[@varanid9]

Harryhausen made his eponymous Allosaurus with lips in his film, "The Valley of Gwangi". In fact, in once scene, his lip is shown starting to curl up to show the teeth underneath. Maybe Spinosaurus didn't have lips?

[@choptop81]

You should make a video on the paleontological slapfight over Dravidosaurus sometime

[@Rainlights13]

Dinosaurs, more kissable than expected???

[@Birthday_Shark]

I need that Diliphosaurus art you have in your office. It looks amazing.

[@RaptorChatter]

It's an official print of the concept art for Jurassic Park from Stan Winston's studio! There's still some out there for sale I think

[@Birthday_Shark]

@@RaptorChatter Thank you, sir!

[@michellebeckham5310]

Ornithischian dinosaurs probably didn't have full lips. Many theropods are beaked as well. I think studying beak evolution will help understand lip and lipless conditions. For instance do you need lips to develop a beak or is being lipless help a beak to form?

[@ArtemisDalmasca]

I like the information, especially as someone who kinda tries to keep at least somewhat in the loop concerning things like this. I'm seriously waiting for anything solid to be released about Spino's since that seems to flip flop every few months.

[@danser_theplayer01]

You are all wrong, I propose we put giant bulging red lips on T-rex and other dinos!

[@BzotsOutOfIllinois3500]

WE HAVE LIED STOLEN LOOKED PREVERSELY AND USED GODS NAME IN VAIN SO REPENT AND TRUST IN CHRIST FOR HE SAVED U HELL ON THE CROSS.

[@danser_theplayer01]

@@BzotsOutOfIllinois3500 What kind of *rugs you on?

[@adamtruong1759]

Thb, I'm surprised that it's only now this is happening, and I find it hilarious that it's almost treated like something new.

[@DawnFire05]

I didn’t know that about the lips keeping teeth moist to help with ware and tear. It makes me think about land crocs. When a crocodylomorph became fully terrestrial was it in their best interest to also adapt lips to cover their teeth? I think that could honestly say a lot about one of our most mysterious crocodylomorphs (and my personal favorite extinct baddie) kaprosuchus. I’ve always been a personal believer of the hypothesis that kaprosuchus had a foot in both worlds. It’d stalk its prey from the water and would chase them down over short distances on land. The fact that kaprosuchus had so many large teeth that would be sticking out seems like it would place it more into the water, especially since its teeth were probably its primary hunting weapon. It also makes me curious about smilodons and the other saber toothed mammals of our past, as well as our own modern saber tooths. Smilodon, unlike kaprosuchus, had the benefit of being able to use its claws as a main weapon, and wouldn’t necessarily be relying solely on its teeth. And water deer have fangs, but they aren’t hunting and putting its teeth up to those weekly stresses. It makes me wonder if these factors all mean that kaprosuchus spent a considerable amount of time in the water. It also makes me wonder if its teeth and ramming skull were more a strange result of sexual display and secondarily a result of hunting. But it also seems like it’s foramina? (nerve holes) were more terrestrail animal oriented, though I’m no biologist so this is just my looking at the skull and comparing it to the pictures you showed. It’s skull was smooth but it looks like a ridge of holes along the teeth, other than the tip of the skull full of small holes. I like to imagine kaprosuchus as an animal similar to qianosuchus, both a predator of land and water. I hope we find more kaprosuchus fossils soon, I love this animal and the mystery that shrouds it. It’s such a great animal for someone like me who loves speculative biology to, well, speculate on.

[@lorencalfe6446]

You can sorta tell if they have lips from their bones; orderly deep grooves at the base of the teeth on the maxilla and mandible are usually attachment sites for soft tissue like gingiva which cover the teeth and need to be protected by some sort of lips! This was my ‘argument’ and its cool seeing the professional paleontologists saying similar things. (also, the reason croc teeth dont need covering is partially attributable to the thick hard tissue covering the pulp. I think they went over this in the video)

[@DawnFire05]

@Master Baiter Yeah that's what I surmised

[@rsmac11]

I don't know why the algorithm chose to send me to your channel. Perhaps it is a just and loving algorithm. Regardless, as a nerd who has no formal training in archeology, anthropology, paleontology, and no post graduate qualifications in any meaningful hard science, I like this. I will stay.

[@RaptorChatter]

Glad you like it!

[@mii2475]

If t rex doesn't have lips, then how do they kiss?

[@austinsy8056]

Why would they need to kiss? Only humans do that Lol

[@prywatne4733]

​@@austinsy8056that's discrimination against Tyrannosauri reges.

[@leechild4655]

5:19 this is what I was looking for. those indentations in the jaw bones above the teeth. This would be where muscles of the lips would attach so, they probably could make fart sounds with its lips and breathing. Probably a part of their vocabulary no doubt.

[@Guyverman01]

I don't think it will be over until they find a mummified head of a T-rex or similar animal.

[@The_SOB_II]

Happy April Onest

[@laurachapple6795]

I was 95% sure this was an April fool's video when I saw it come up.

[@vkobevk]

the new is one week old

[@thereisnopandemic]

It’s never over, until we see one in real life

[@GnarStark]

I vaguely remember from a crocodile doc that they can have exposed teeth because they’re mostly aquatic animals. Teeth exposed to the air constantly can degrade them so I’d think dinosaurs would have lips covering them?

[@kuitaranheatmorus9932]

Am glad this debate exist though cause it just teaches us alot about dinosaur which is a good thing, but I sure do like to think most dinosaurs had lips like these. Also I wish y'all are having a great day

[@jimparsons6803]

I knew of this back and forth from before, but I didn't know about the evidence. My thanks for giving such a clear set of evidence.

[@zabijavak2329]

I think the lips look better anyways. It makes them look more like an actual animal and not a toothy, spiky movie monster.

[@wormwoodcocktail]

4:38 What about Spinosaurus and non-dinosaurs like marine reptiles from the time? Would they have a more croc-like face?

[@TheAlison1456]

This is the last place I expected to learn about the purpose of lips. You think a dentist or some biology book about the oral cavity would've mentioned it.

[@modakkagitplugga]

Honestly it's all changed so much since I was a kid, that I'm expecting someone to find evidence that these things were mammals at this point and I'll be inconsolable if that happens

[@alexanderstavroulakis335]

Why?

[@nutyyyy]

Ridiculous.

[@GregoryShtevensh]

The issue I have with this, is the crocodile monitor has a concave in its upper jaw rather than a Convex like T-Rex

[@RobSojourn]

I am curious, based on these conclusions, if the smilodon (sabre toothed cats) had extra enamel on their potentially exposed big teeth?

[@RaptorChatter]

Potentially. Of just bigger lips that hung some. Like some of those super slobbery dogs.

[@speedracer2008]

@@RaptorChatterWhen I draw sabertoothed cats, I give them pouches for their teeth, but still have the tips of the teeth pointing out, so people know it’s a sabertoothed cat.

[@erikhamann]

What about Pterosaurs like Anhanguera, that have long interlocking teeth?

[@RaptorChatter]

They may have done something else, and hopefully someone will look into that. This paper was focused on the dinosaurs, but it at least gives a good template of ways to estimate for lips.

[@catpoke9557]

I wonder this a lot too. I honestly have no clue if pterosaurs had lips or not, and it bothers me

[@sideways_chip_eater6420]

Okay hear me out What if they do have lips but have the ability to lift them up when they're trying to snarl or look intimidating or have facial expressions. (Not like humans or anything but something minimal like wolves snarling and stuff)

[@Spamkromite]

I once saw a cow snarling at me.

[@turbonerd3075]

Oh finally! I can sleep now, this debate has been bugging me for years.

[@EvilTwinRC51]

Gonna have to fix that picture behind you!

[@Srt3D01-db-01]

5:32 thats a pretty chunky meal for a single swallow 😅

[@hanselmansell7555]

Brilliant stuff, what KZbin was mad for 👍

[@8023120SL]

Well if they didnt have lips then where did the the lady t rexs wear their lipstick?

[@brawlholic9960]

Sebecidae was a clade of reptiles that survived the K-Pg extinction event. While distantly related to crocodilians, they were ecologically closer to the dinosaurs. Barinasuchus and others from the family were terrestrial predators. So the question is, did they have lips to protect their teeth or not? probably not

[@dylansearcy3966]

The early reconstruction of the t.Rex was depicted with lips

[@shorelinefishing9213]

I didn’t think this was a debate after 2016

[@jessehunter362]

@Acceleration Quanta The majority of living reptiles have lips, because the lizards have lips. The vast majority of archosaurs alive today have beaks, which is not likely the basal condition, given that a great number of dinosaurs weren’t sporting beaks.

[@scourgeface]

@Acceleration Quanta i found who didnt watch the video

[@nicolassenmartin1018]

​@Acceleration Quanta you know that living Archosaurs, and Archelosaurs as we can include turtles in that clade, are very particular right? Closest dinosaur relatives funnily enough aren't good analogues for the ones lacking beaks : those being crocodilians and have a very particular lifestyle and feeding strategy which advantage the absence of lips. Also, coming on beaks, those do not determine if the ancestral animals were lacking lips. From a logical stance, beaks probably evolved from lips as they first were covering teeth in stem birds like Ichthyornithiforms. So, technically, beaks evolved as highly keratinized lips in some sense. Phylogeny backtracking can be a good tool but in some cases, like here, ecology is more important as well as the evidences provided as in the facial structure (which is what has been done in this paper).

[@catpoke9557]

@Acceleration Quanta Have you ever stepped outside and looked at a lizard?

[@LeoTheYuty]

@Acceleration Quanta oh my god bruh watch the damn video. Jurassic Park isn't a documentary.

[@MissCoupons]

I enjoyed listening to this video

[@theneef174]

Give it another month, we'll have yet another explanation on how it's actually really, really long lips.

[@OldGayGamer]

I always pictured them with lips because I think of them as lizards, and every sharp toothed lizard I can think of does not have exposed teeth. Crocodilians do, but they're not lizards.

[@humblemarty]

I like either version.

[@batguy39]

Accuracy vs Badass

[@marxtheenigma873]

2:13 aMan? Behold aMan!

[@CrayolaCoffeeBean]

Interesting!

[@vladline1882]

Does that mean Spinosaurus don't have lips? 🤔

[@RaptorChatter]

It could go either way. We just need someone to look at spinosaurus or even baryonyx's skull and apply these methods and see what information they find. They were probably less aquatic than modern Crocs, so that may be a case for them having lips, but we just need to wait on the research

[@sleekchaser3049]

Although i do believe that dinosaurs do have lips, I also think it's possible that some, especially those with big teeth such as trex have their teeth sticking out. Saber cats had their saber teeth exposed and it seems to be fine

[@AgroAcro]

I feel like T.rex probably fully covered it's lips, but maybe some Spinosaurs didn't, although I think it's more likely than not that they did have fully covering lips.

[@34r343]

​@@AgroAcroI think spinosaurs could have had the river dolphin treatment with the front tip exposed with most of the back surrounded by lips. They should do the enamel test on spinosaurs as well

[@swedneck]

Fwiw i find that theropods with lips just look more sensible than without

[@derangedlazyartist]

Someone should do the tooth thing w spinosaurus.

[@zuttoaragi8349]

Am I the only one who's always thought they look cooler with lips?

[@austinsy8056]

I thought they looked cooler without them

[@BLKBRDSR71]

Great, now I can't un-see a T-Rex using it's lips to smile at it's victim. 👄

[@abdulazizrex]

Why isn’t anyone bringing up how crocs and theropods regularly replaced their teeth?

[@domesticus2958]

Apparently theropods didn't replace their teeth nearly as quickly or as often as crocodilians do, or sharks for that matter. This lines up with the new research indicating that theropod teeth were less worn and less enamel-covered than croc teeth; they probably had lips

[@jessquinn6106]

Honestly, I have been drawing lips on dinos since I was a kid in the late 70's and 80s. Just because it made sense to me. I was always disgruntled as a kid and teen that movies and Paleo books at the time just drew skin on top of skeletons with no muscle mass between the two. So, my adding lips to therapods was just common for me to add. I guess I was way ahead of the game thinking "Would not the dry air and windstorms damage exposed teeth?" Years later University confirmed my theory when I was majoring in Archaeology.

[@mrgodzillaraptors8632]

Awesome

[@Crispy_Bee]

Lips make most sense of just about every type of active land animal. It protects the gums from drying out, the teeth from the elements, helps with camouflage and keeps the food in your mouth while eating and keeps the dust and dirt outside. Even birds like geese keep their teeth mostly 'covered', there are very few birds who have teeth and whose teeth are visible when their mouths are closed - and basically all of those that have "uncovered" teeth have them as part of the beak structure and not "actual" teeth. Even when you take large land reptiles like snakes or lizards like Komodo Dragons - they all have lips.

[@LuisRivera-jk1vo]

Teeth rules on Crocodiles in the modern world madafaka

[@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount]

Me at 3 AM

[@fnnnn5986]

T-rex be like 👁👄👁

[@informer3evans797]

If crocodiles regrow their teeth on average over 2 times per year what does protecting the teeth have to do with it? Do we know if T Rex regrew teeth and if so how often? It doesn't seem like lips would matter if you're re-growing teeth that you lose.

[@kaizusmyguyzus6469]

Regrowing teeth still takes valuable energy and nutrients, so protecting teeth is still important.

[@Diobrando-no1wy]

Terry seems so chad with lips

[@Lowlandlord]

So, did terrestrial crocodilians have lips to protect the teethes?

[@RaptorChatter]

Maybe! They still need to be studied more closely, but this paper at least does a lot of the groundwork to establish how likely they were to have lips.

[@tjarkschweizer]

Most likely

[@domesticus2958]

It's really not a matter of whether they could protect their teeth or not. We know that crocodiles can protect their teeth with extra coats of enamel and by replacing them often. Crocodylomorphs that existed before true crocodilians, like rauisuchians, probably had lips because that was the ancestral conditions. Any terrestrial crocodilians that evolved directly from lipless aquatic crocodilians, like Quinkana, probably also adopted the lipless condition.

[@palasta]

Mh. What if dinosaurs had movable lips? :D

[@Kakaragi]

When will you cover Spinosaurus?

[@RaptorChatter]

I have many times. Most recently after the paper that came out late last year.

[@jeffreygao3956]

1:20 So, by that logic how come sharks, whales, and pinnipeds still have lips?

[@Spamkromite]

1. The "lips" are just a muscle to help elasmobranchii to project their jaws forwards to catch prey and force a vacuum. That's why many fishes evolved lips for the vacuum factor while catching prey, but some others don't, like the Hydrocynus goliath (that snaps on prey until they bleed to dead, just like many abyssal fish that are literal traps of teeth), or the piranha. The piranha has them like that because they don't rely on "gripping" the fish but to gash it with quick mouth movements until the prey weakens. Also they are more scavengers than hunters anyway and need to shred big preys before consuming them. All is on the purpose of the teeth, and the more stress on the teeth, the less lips in the way. It's not a matter of keeping them "moist" underwater. 1.2 Many sharks don't have lips like the carcharias taurus for example. 2. Whales needs lips to trap the water in while filtering and shifting through the baleens with their tongues. 3. They evolved from land mammals that had lips by default. Many of them still uses them to fill their mouths (vacuum effect) with water and spray a jet with them while shifting through the reefs and the seafloor looking for food. That's true for the otters that use water jets to comb the seafloor to expose clams. The leopard seal gets an extra grip on its prey with the help of the lips. Also remember that pinnipeds and lutrinae also spend most of the time outside the water. They also still need their lips to keep their whiskers and all the hardwired sensorial evolution poured on their muzzles alone. There's also no practical need in losing lips for odontoceti because of the extra sensorial organs along their lip line, and the extra grip that gives while catching slippery prey underwater, but beaked whales started to develop tusks outside their mouths and these has the same properties as the tusks of a land animal like the boars. Just search for the strap-toothed whale to see an example. They are worn because they use them constantly in their inter-socialization pods and in some cases, to ram and cause a world of hurt against predators like sharks and even orcas. Think also of the narwhal, that uses the tooth mostly for courtship, or the tusks of the walrus, smaller in the females but they all use them to carve in the ice and poke pain on the others to fight for ice-platforms to rest. Lips don't really "fall off" in evolution unless it's blocking the animal from being efficient at getting food (like causing pain while eating) or mates (bitting the lips of your rivals is painful because of the many nerves that are in there). They just don't come off that easily. They are a pretty powerful evolved organ on mammals and it has too many perks for survival to lose them like that 😅

[@whiskeytango9769]

Are there any land vertebrates that have teeth and no lips? I can't think of any. I suspect that dinosaurs had lips.