Trichomonosis killed T. rex, suggest articles in ScienceDaily, and PLoS 30 September 2009. Many dinosaur jaws have holes in them that have been attributed to bites from other dinosaurs or bacterial diseases. Physical trauma and bacterial infection usually cause irregular holes, but some dinosaur specimens have distinctive smooth edged holes in them. Ewan D.S. Wolff of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Steven W. Salisbury of the University of Queensland and colleagues have studied the jaws of numerous tyrannosaurid dinosaur specimens and found 10 specimens, including the “Sue” of the Field Museum of Chicago, had multiple smooth edge holes extending through the full thickness of the jaw.
They noted these holes were similar to those caused by a single celled parasite named Trichomonas. This parasite is known to infect birds, especially predatory birds, where it causes ulcers in the mouth and throat and erodes the jaws. In advanced cases the bird is unable to eat. The dinosaur researchers suggest that the tyrannosaurs spread the infection by biting one another in fights, or by preying on other infected dinosaurs and by cannibalism. Wolff commented: “The lesions we observe on Sue suggest a very advanced stage of the disease and may even have been the cause of her demise.”
Editorial Comment: Disease spread by biting has recently had a lot of publicity with the facial tumour disease in Tasmanian Devils. If this Dinosaur disease was spread the same way it gives us some insight into the origin of disease. In the original good world that God made, all animals were vegetarian therefore a bite-spread disease could not have occurred. It is only after animals became predators and scavengers and started biting each other that this disease could have commenced. (Ref. protozoa, fossils, bones, diet)
Evidence News 24 Mar 2010