Canadian palaeontologist answers burning question about T-rex's private parts (VIDEO)
It’s hard to have a private life when you’re a T. rex that has been extinct for 65 million years. People have long been fascinated by this fantastic beast, which has left many questioning how it lived. While some might marvel at the size of the Tyrannosaurus rex, simply want to know one thing: why do reconstructions show the dinosaur looking “smooth like a Ken doll” down there?
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) shared a video on its TikTok channel with the caption, “Where’s the 🦖🍆?” Canadian paleontologist Greg Funston provides a scientific explanation about the T. rex’s privates, and no, it’s not due to Victorian modesty.
metha1819/Shutterstock
“Despite seeming like a silly question, this is actually really interesting to think about,” he said. “We do actually have good evidence for what the genitalia of dinosaurs might have looked like. When we look at living dinosaurs, the birds, you might be able to think we don’t see external genitalia on birds, and that’s because they have an anatomical part called a cloaca.”
Funston explained that the cloaca is a multipurpose hole used for excretion and reproduction. And it’s not just because birds also have cloacas — some fossils support this theory.
Watch the clip below:
@romtoronto Why is T. rex smooth like a Ken doll? Can we blame Queen Victoria? Dr. Greg Funston unpacks this taboo question. #GetCultured #trex #paleotok #learnwithtiktok ♬ original sound – ROMToronto
“We have some really fantastic fossils from China of an animal called psittacosaurus, that’s an early relative of triceratops,” explained. “And this animal is preserved laying on its belly, and we can actually see the skin impression of the cloaca, and so we know that that dinosaur had very similar anatomy to what we see in things like crocodiles as well as in birds.”
While some birds have an external phallus, there’s no fossil evidence showing that dinosaurs also had them.
In an article published on the ROM’s website, Funston stated, “So dinosaur depictions are not just modest, they are accurate too!”
It looks like the question fascinated others, too — as of August 27, the video has over 130,000 views.
“Thank you! I’ve always wondered,” wrote one commenter.
“So I have literally never thought about a dinosaur’s genitals, but now it is all I’m going to think about all week,” stated another on Instagram.
One TikTok user stated, “I would argue that at this point, no part of a dinosaur is ‘private.'”
Another person quipped, “I learned about the cloaca a while back on snakes… needless to say, I started calling people this.”
Follow Channels and Categories