How to tell if something is Tyrannosaurus bone?

[Nanotyrannus35]

So I had been wondering, what characteristics of Tyrannosaurus bone make it identifiable as Tyrannosaurus? On the forum I think I've seen that "Honeycomb" structure means tyrannosaur. Just wondering if anyone has tips on identifying dinosaur bone as Tyrannosaurus.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Nanotyrannus35

[Troodon]

Well we have a good picture of the morphology of most of the bones in with the paper on the osteology of  Trex Sue  (Brochu  2003). Can be more difficult on some juvie bones since you have to consider if its a juvie Trex or Nanotyrannus but a number of the bones are different.  You mention a honeycomb structure and that typical of vertebrae with most theropod not exclusive to Trex although their structure is probably larger.  Small fragments unless there is something diagnostic would be difficult to determine

[-Andy-]

I don't know how you can truly ever tell from isolated bones

 

I once had a large chunkosaur (nickname for unidentified chunk of bone) that my friend gave me as a T. rex bone. When I posted the pictures on Facebook, many people weighed in, claiming it isn't T. rex. Even a museum staff whom I know has lots of experience posted a lengthy explanation showing comparison of the bone structure with known T. rex fossils, how the size, cross section etc all didn't match T. rex. All in all, he did lots of homework and I accepted his reasoning as to why my chunkosaur wasn't T. rex

 

Then my friend replied to the post and identified himself, explaining that the chunkosaur quite literally came from a T. rex femur he found. Said friend was in fact an amateur paleontologist who found a T. rex skeleton before and even the museum staff immediately accepted his explanation upon hearing his name (before that, I didn't know of my friend's credentials)

 

What I'm trying to say is - the only way to know if a random bone chunk is from a T. rex is if the digger got it out of an identifiable T. rex bone

Edited November 24, 2021 by -Andy-