Pity the T-Rex

My friends and I have an unhealthy obsession with T-Rex. It all started when one of the guys said, completely randomly, that dinosaurs became extinct because Rex had a tummy-itch and couldn’t reach to scratch it. (You had to be there.) There are so many funny T-rex pictures, and since then I’ve found Hugh Murphy’s awesome Tumblr, T-Rex Trying. It’s hilarious and sad and you should check it out.

My sister, a second-year Occupational Therapy student, concluded that Rex needs OT and assistive devices:

THEN my favourite rheumatology professor asked us who had the oldest known case of gout. I guessed some random pharaoh.

Nope.

You guessed it.

T-Rex is the oldest known case in the world with gout, with evidence of gouty erosions found in T-rex skeletons in 1997. I quite like rheumatology so I definitely want to give Rex a hug (and some colchicine!) now. Rex’s meat-heavy diet was probably the culprit. Not a wonder the poor creature was such a grump!