Tyrannosaurus Rex

The grossly inaccurate T-Rex from Fantasia (1940) which is used as reference for most T-Rex appearances in Disney Parks

### Aliases

T-Rex
Tyrannosaurus

### Associated attraction

Ford's Magic Skyway
Disneyland Railroad
Lost River Rapids (unbuilt)
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

## Biographical information

### Date of death

Aprox. 66 million years ago

The **Tyrannosaurus Rex** is a dinosaur affiliated with the Disney Parks

## Description

The T-Rex was a hyper-carnivorous apex predator which prowled North America during the Cretaceous period.

### Inaccuracies

#### Fantasia

The primary T-Rex seen in Disney Parks suffers from some fairly gross inaccuracies:

* It is constantly shown with three-fingered hands, the T-Rex had only two fingers per hand
* It is constantly shown to be a scaly reptile while in real-life it would have been an ave (bird) with avian scales and some feathery/proto-feathery plumage.
* The T-Rex is always shown in a kangaroo-like pose with its back upright and its tail dragging on the ground. This is highly inaccurate as the T-Rex would have held its body parallel to the ground. The T-Rex is frequently shown in a fight with a Stegosaurus, an animal which went extinct millions of years before the T-Rex first appeared with humans having lived closer to the T-Rex than any T-Rex did to a stegosaur.

## History

### Real world

Tyrannosaurus rex was an apex predator during the Cretaceous period. They were killed off during the KT extinction event.

### Parks

#### Arizona

One or several T-Rex inhabited Arizona in what would become the Big Thunder region. Several died nearby what became Big Thunder Mountain with one in the region later named *Dinosaur Gap*, and many more on what became Geyser Gulch along the *Rivers of the Far West*. One might have survived further into the KT extinction event by living in the Grand Canyon.

## Appearances and allusions

### Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

A T-Rex skeleton is encountered near the end of this attraction with the area its found in being identified as, "Dinosaur Gap".

### Discovery Bay

During development of Discovery Bay, it was planned for the T-Rex to appear in an attraction called, "Lost River Rapids" where it would be a late-surviving dinosaur living outside of Jason Chandler's Discovery Bay colony. The animatronic would be repurposed from the Primeval World diorama along with the other prehistoric creature animatronics.

### Disneyland Railroad

The Disneyland Railroad's Primeval World display is a tribute to the Rite of Spring taking place in a primeval Grand Canyon. At the end of the diorama, the T-Rex is seen fighting the Stegosaur.

### Ellen's Energy Adventure

In this defunct EPCOT attraction, the T-Rex and the Stegosaur fought on a cliff as guests passed through due to them engaging in a story being told by comedian Ellen Degenerous about a weird dream she had where Bill Nye the Science Guy explained fossil-fuel science to her so she could win a game of Jeopardy.

### Dinosaur (Countdown to Extinction)

A recreation of the famous, "**Sue**" T-Rex skeleton can be found in this area of Disney's Animal Kingdom Park in the exterior queue for the attraction Dinosaur (Countdown to Extinction). The T-Rex was once planned to be the main-antagonist of the attraction Countdown to Extinction AKA DINOSAUR but was swapped out for a highly inaccurate recreation of a Carnotaurus. The carnotaurus in the attraction is actually modelled after a T-Rex body with a carnotaurus' head.

Busts of the T-Rex can be found within the queue for the attraction and in the fictional history of Diggs County, Florida (the attraction's setting) it was the discovery of a T-Rex skeleton which lead to the town's boom in archaeology.

### Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar

There is a T-Rex tooth in a display-case in this Disney Springs bar of S.E.A. member Jock Lindsey. With it is a message from, "S" to Jock Lindsey's saying, "Thanks for getting me off the island". This is an allusion to *Raiders of the Lost Ark* director Steven Spielberg who also made the film Jurassic Park and who was saved from a 1993 hurricane on the island of Kauai where the film was shot by Jock Lindsey's real-life actor, Fred Sorenson. How the Disney Parks version of this story played out is unknown though it is worth noting that in the film Jurassic Park, a T-Rex is cloned in modern-day for an island theme-park before it is inadvertently set free during a hurricane.

### Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland

The T-Rex's skeletons could be seen in the Living Desert of this attraction in Frontierland.

### Rivers of the Far West

A T-Rex skeleton can be seen in the Geyser Plateau nearby Ravenswood Manor in Thunder Mesa along the Rivers of the Far West. The skeleton can be observed from the steamboats of the river.

### In other media

#### Film

##### Fantasia

The T-Rex appeared in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia during the *Rite of Spring* sequence where in the final days of the Mesozoic eras it fought and killed a stegosaur for food before dying itself.

#### Printed materials

##### Disney Kingdoms

A T-Rex skeleton can be seen within Big Thunder Mountain during a fight between the bandits and George Willikers' men

## Trivia

* Imagineer Joe Rohde once proposed that the Floridian Carnotaurus featured in Dinosaur (Countdown to Extinction) might be a hybrid of Carnotaurus and another animal. The most likely contender for its non Carnosaur parent would be T-Rex given their shared anatomical features.

## References

1. ↑ https://allears.net/2019/02/27/grab-your-whips-and-satchels-here-are-all-the-cool-indiana-jones-hidden-details-at-jock-lindseys-hangar-bar/
2. ↑ https://twitter.com/Joe\_Rohde/status/1147704324446814209