Airdate: T-Rex Autopsy

Next month Nat Geo presents a 2 hour special in which scientists and paleontologists will recreate a Tyrannosaurus Rex and then dissect it from head to toe, in T-Rex Autopsy.

Leading special effects company Crawley Creatures, which has worked over 25 years in the film & TV industry on such titles as The Lost World and Walking with Dinosaurs spent 4.5 months reconstructing the T-Rex inside and out.

Maybe not as ‘literally’ as it suggests but fascinating for dino die-hards, nonetheless.

At 14 metres long, nearly 2 metres wide and lying lifeless in a specially constructed biology lab, the world’s first full-size, anatomically complete recreation of a Tyrannosaurus Rex awaits dissection. In National Geographic Channel’s new two-hour special, T-Rex Autopsy, four intrepid scientists get to the heart (literally) of what made this fearsome creature tick.

Using cutting-edge special effects techniques, and in collaboration with esteemed veterinary surgeons, anatomists and paleontologists, T-Rex Autopsy will build the world’s first full-size anatomically correct Tyrannosaurus Rex, based on the very latest research and findings. The massive monster will be life-like inside and out, giving scientists the chance to touch it, smell it, scan it, X-ray it and cut it open from head to toe for the first time.

This once-in-a-lifetime experiment offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore questions such as whether or not T-Rex had feathers; how it fed with tiny arms; whether it was primarily a hunter or scavenger; how it digested food; how old it lived to be; how it procreated; and whether it was warm-blooded like a mammal or cold-blooded like a reptile.

Half gruesome monster film, and all real science, T-Rex Autopsy is a special that both aspiring and reformed dinosaur fanatics will find engrossing. Once the T-Rex has been fully dissected and examined, we’ll learn just how and why this particular beast met its end, which in and of itself could reveal more information about the prehistoric creatures.

6:30pm Sunday June 7 on Nat Geo.