Meet T-Rex!

A big dinosaur with a gentle story

Our T-Rex is a playful story character who loves music and friendship. His sharp teeth might make the other dinosaurs hesitate, but readers discover someone who wants to join in, just like them.

Good for sharing with little readers

Dinosaur Disco gives families a way to talk about feeling left out, trying something new and finding the confidence to enjoy being yourself. Ask your child which dance they would teach T-Rex, or take turns making up a silly dinosaur move.

Read why T-Rex chose to dance by himself, then explore his rhyming adventure in Dinosaur Disco.

Spot a real Tyrannosaurus rex

Look for a large head, powerful back legs, a long tail and two very small arms. Tyrannosaurus rex was a meat eating dinosaur. Our dancing T-Rex is an imaginative character, rather than a reconstruction of how the real animal behaved.

Try spotting these shapes in a toy or picture, then compare them with Tricky’s three horns in our dinosaur identification guide for children.

About the real Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex lived in the Late Cretaceous, around 68–66 million years ago, in what is now North America. A large adult could measure about 12 metres from nose to tail. Imagine measuring out twelve big metre-long steps to picture that length!

Its enormous jaws and pointed teeth helped it eat meat. The name Tyrannosaurus rex means “tyrant lizard king”. Fossils tell us about its bones and teeth, but scientists still debate what its tiny arms were used for. Our T-Rex’s dancing and kindness belong to his storybook personality: real dinosaur facts give children another way to explore the animal behind the character.

Explore more with the Natural History Museum’s Tyrannosaurus rex guide.