The first Tyrannosaurus rex I ever met was horribly out of date. Propped upright in the Cretaceous dinosaur hall at the American Museum of Natural History, the snarling tyrant held the same tail-dragging pose that it had for the past eight decades, seemingly in defiance of paleontologists who were promoting an updated rendition of T. rex as a speedy killer with a more horizontally-oriented spine. The dinosaur’s new persona was struggling to subdue the old.

By 1994, the AMNH renovated their dinosaur halls and gave their T. rex a proper spinal adjustment. And the spectacular cinema dinosaurs of Jurassic Park instantly popularized the adjusted posture and supercharged nature of the tyrant. T.