In July of 2025, Dr. John Nielsen, professor of Paleobiology at Yale University, was leading a team of undergraduate students in a paleontological dig about 40 miles north of Jordan, Montana, when they unearthed the find of a lifetime: an adult Tyrannosaurus rex with one claw extended in what researchers described as “a gesture widely interpreted as flipping the bird” to several Triceratops horridus (despite T. rex only having two fingers on each hand). The shocking discovery was considered the first conclusive evidence to support a theory gaining much more popularity among paleontologists: dinosaurs may not have been as nice as we once thought.

“It was the most complete, perfectly fossilized specimen I’ve ever uncovered,” says Dr. Nielsen. “There is little doubt as to what was happening when these animals were fossilized: that T. Rex was flipping off those poor Triceratops.”

A team of researchers at Yale, led by Dr. Nielsen’s colleague Dr. Vivian Sawyer, conducted a groundbreaking new study on the behavior of dinosaurs; this study, using data from CAT-scanned fossils and learnings from current understandings of animal sociology, has concluded that dinosaurs were likely not as nice as previously thought.

Dr. Sawyer was disheartened by the team's findings: “It’s honestly disappointing. I’ve spent my entire life studying megatheropods like T. Rex, and it turns out they specifically exhibited problematic antisocial and interpersonal behaviors. T. rex was a total jerk.”

Soon after the paleontologists found the T. rex displaying vulgar behavior, a team in Argentina led by amateur paleontologist Gino Bucca found a fossil of a Giganotosaurus apparently mouthing what researchers believe may have been a slur to a herd of small ornithomimids. “There's a good chance that this predator was using a slur directed at these poor animals. It's really just too bad, knowing that Giganotosaurus was a bigot.”

Other recent additions to the fossil record seem to support the hypothesis that dinosaurs weren't very nice, including a Chinese dinosaur found with what appears to be a purple nurple, a well-preserved Egyptian Spinosaurus giving a wedgie to a smaller sauropod, and even some fossils with what researchers now believe may have been “targeted biting,” a form of prehistoric harassment previously mistaken for predation. A paper, co-authored by Dr. Nielsen and Dr. Sawyer, suggests that these four examples of dinosaur-on-dinosaur bullying paint a clear picture of these ancient animals, and it isn't a pretty one. 

Speaking on behalf of the dinosaur community, public relations manager Luisa Alavarez had a response when reached out to for comment: “We cannot retroactively impose modern social norms on animals that lived 66 million years ago. These fossils show us an incomplete record of what happened, as our taphonomist has unequivocally shown.”

Taphonomists study what happens to live tissue after death, including decomposition and fossilization. Dr. Carl Jorgensen, a professor of Fossil Taphonomy and Paleobiology at the University of Georgia, has worked with Ms. Alvarez on behalf of dinosaurs. “The fossil record is incomplete and misses many details. For example, we don't know the context in which these events took place; with the T. rex, those Triceratops could have just cut him off, or they might have said something nasty first,” he said. “Ultimately, we'll never know, but we believe the real problem is that nice dinosaurs weren't getting fossilized as much, and I'd argue that some of the more pleasant dinosaurs we know of just aren't getting this sensationalist coverage.”

While Dr. Jorgensen is right in that we may never know, it seems there is evidence that some dinosaurs exhibited what we would generally qualify as being rude. More will surely be unearthed about the topic in the future, as Dr. Nielsen’s and Dr. Sawyer's team continue to find disrespectful dinosaurs in the Hell Creek formation of the Western US.

“I'm not saying the asteroid that wiped the dinosaurs out was justified,” says Dr. Nielsen. “But some of these creatures were real a**holes. Imagine that T. rex being your neighbor; there's a behavioral issue there that would make cohabitation among the dinosaurs quite difficult.”