University of Alberta scientists refute T. Rex intelligence claims

Two University of Alberta neurobiologists have joined an international team of scientists to refute a 2023 study claiming Tyrannosaurus rex were as smart as primates.

The team, which includes research associate Cristian Gutierrez-Ibanez and Doug Wylie, a neuroscience professor with the U of A's department of biological sciences, have published new findings refuting a 2023 study that claimed dinosaurs like the T. Rex may have been as smart as baboons and could share knowledge and tool use.

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"There were a lot of people who thought the record needed to be set straight," Gutierrez-Ibanez said in a Monday news release. "Particularly because it did make it into the press. You end up with this popular idea that T. Rex was super smart and could use tools and have culture and you go, 'Whoa.'"

In a new study published in the journal The Anatomical Record, the team examined the techniques used by the author of the 2023 study, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University, to estimate the size of a dinosaur and the number of neurons it had. They found that Herculano-Houzel's assumptions were unreliable.

"She's focused on the neuron number, and they are too high anyway," Wylie said in the release.

The new study clarifies that. Athough all birds are dinosaurs, many other dinosaurs were reptiles with brains far different from those of mammals and birds. Most notably, their brains do not fill their skulls like a mammal brain and are less packed with neurons than mammals and birds. The structure of reptile brains also limits the complexity of their social behaviour.

The team concluded that the T. Rex was probably only about as smart as a crocodile, not a baboon.

"We are not dissing T. Rex," Gutierrez-Ibanez said. "We are just saying that claiming T. Rex had the intelligence of a baboon and culture might be taking it too far."

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