Cool Cast Skull of Acrocanthosaurus

[Troodon]

The BHI provides us interesting backstories into many of the replicas they assemble for museums or private individuals.  I find this one fascinating and thought I would share it with the forum. 

 

Photos and writeup by Pete Larsen.

Began putting together a cast skull of the Oklahoma Acrocanthosaurus atokensis. The right side of the skull is pretty much pathology free.

 

 

 

The left side of the skull, however, is quite a different story.

 

 

 

You will notice that the left nasal and nasal process of the premaxilla show damage. But the “killer” is what happened to the maxilla. Notice the extensive damage and active bacterial infection behind the 5th maxillary tooth. 7 alveoli lost the ability to grow new teeth!

 

 

Maxillary Teeth missing

 

 

A look at the medial aspect shows the closed alveoli and extensive osteomyelitis. And, in the center of the photo, the answers to “what happened"

 

 

When we were cleaning the skull, a chunk of bone broke off the maxilla, revealing a tooth from a crocodile - as reported by Sam Elliot’s character in Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur”!

 

 

My comments:

So it appears that this Acrocanthosaurus got his lower jaw bitten by a Croc, left a gift, a tooth which most likely led to the jaw infection which may have resulted in its death or at least severely affected its lifestyle.   Interesting how many skeletons we see that have injuries.  Life in the Cretaceous was not easy.

 

 

 

 

[sixgill pete]

Great post Frank. This is a dinosaur I have actually seen a skeleton of. The most complete skeleton of Acrocanthosaur is in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh. It is 54% complete. here is a link to it.

 

http://naturalsciences.org/exhibits/tours/extinct-tour

[Bone guy]

This has to be one of the most interesting back stories of a dinosaur I've heard! Imagine being bitten in the face by a crocodile, gaining a bacterial infection from said bite, and having to continue living without any medical treatment. Crazy. 

[cavemanfl]

Super cool. That would have been amazing to unravel that little mystery.

[caldigger]

1 hour ago, Bone guy said:

This has to be one of the most interesting back stories of a dinosaur I've heard! Imagine being bitten in the face by a crocodile, gaining a bacterial infection from said bite, and having to continue living without any medical treatment. Crazy. 

Where was Mike Morath when all this was going down?  He probably could have helped.

@minnbuckeye

[SULLY]

What a cool looking specimen!