{"id":36570,"date":"2026-09-09T08:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/?p=36570"},"modified":"2026-09-10T06:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:40:06","slug":"scientists-estimate-2-5-billion-t-rex-once-lived-in-north-america-but-museums-hold-only-32-well-preserved-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/scientists-estimate-2-5-billion-t-rex-once-lived-in-north-america-but-museums-hold-only-32-well-preserved-adults\/36570\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists estimate 2.5 billion T. rex once lived in North America, but museums hold only 32 well-preserved adults"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A scientific study<\/a> estimated that around 2.5 billion T. rex<\/a> lived in North America over 2,4 millions of years and in comparison, there are only 32 of them that are preserved in museums around the world. This means that finding a fossil of this dinosaur is quite a miracle in terms of statistics. There is only one for over 80 millions that existed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number did not come from counting bones<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Instead of counting how many T. rex’s bones were found, Charles Marshall<\/a> and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated how many animals could have lived at that time. To do this, they combined their body mass, the extent of their territory, the duration of the species, and their population density. It was then with the<\/a> Monte Carlo simulations that helped them deal with uncertainty in those inputs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all these calculations, they concluded that 20.000 adults were alive at any given time, with an average density of one dinosaur per 100 square kilometers. Following that number and their logic, this gave a total of 2.5 billion across around 127,000 generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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