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I’ve noticed a good number of folks finding us in searches for Tyrannosaurus information. Thanks for coming; I hope you find what you’re looking for here.

Today, there’s a widely circulating story about the top speeds modeled by a British team for theropod dinosaurs with the headline (CNN): Study: T-rex could outrun David Beckham. Apparently, T. rex could pretty easily run down and dispatch a healthy, athletic human – even a dashing young sports idol who dabbles in scientology. In the study, T. rex was modeled to top out at about 18 mph, while chicken-sized Compsognathus could have zipped past at about 40 mph. Not too shabby!

But then I found this story: T. rex was ’slow-turning plodder’. Here, an American team concluded that T. rex was not particularly fast or agile, but still rated its top speed as 15-25 mph.

So, the BBC reported on an American study that estimated speeds of up to 25 mph with the headline “slow-turning plodder.” But CNN reported on a British study that estimated top speeds of 18 mph using the headline “could outrun . . . Beckham.”

I guess that doesn’t say much about consistency and perspective in journalism. Of course either way, T. rex was a force to be reckoned with on the Cretaceous landscape.