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Real-life 67 million-year-old T.rex goes on show in Paris museum

You may have seen computer-generated versions in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films, as well as models in museums or theme parks.

But an exhibit that opened in Paris on Wednesday and is on show until September lets visitors come face to face with the real thing: A female Tyrannosaurus rex in its 30s.

With her enormous teeth frozen in a sinister grin, "Trix" is the first genuine T.rex skeleton to go on display in France, according to the French National Museum of Natural History.

One of the most complete Tyrannosaurus skeletons in the world, with 75 per cent of the bones in "excellent form", the 67 million-year-old, eight-tonne dinosaur is 12.5m long and 4m high.

A Dutch team unearthed the specimen in Montana, US, in 2013 with the skull fully intact. It is among the best preserved T.rex fossils ever found, according to the museum, which says the exhibit is "the first time a real T.rex skeleton, not a moulding or a reproduction, will be presented to the public in France".

Palaeontologist Florent Goussard said: "What this T.rex gives us is a huge amount of information about how it lived, and especially we can observe a lot of injuries, fractures and bone infections."

Travelling around Europe, the ferocious carnivore's remains will be mounted in typical T.rex attack pose, bent over with its neck low to the ground, its massive jaws stretched wide in a 1.5m skull, staring straight into the visitor's face. - REUTERS/AFP

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