When the Tyrannosaurus Rex Roamed the Earth

The Tyrannosaurus Rex lived during the very end of the Cretaceous Period, making it one of the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist before the mass extinction event. This iconic predator dominated the landscape for a relatively short but impactful time in Earth's history.

Specifically, the T-Rex lived approximately 68 to 66 million years ago (Ma). This places it firmly in the Late Cretaceous epoch, which was the final chapter of the Mesozoic Era, often called the "Age of Dinosaurs."

During its time, the T-Rex was an apex predator in what is now western North America, hunting large herbivorous dinosaurs like Triceratops and Edmontosaurus. Its reign ended abruptly with the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event, likely caused by a massive asteroid impact, which wiped out most dinosaur species.

Pro tip: While the T-Rex is often seen as the quintessential dinosaur, it actually lived closer in time to humans than it did to earlier dinosaurs like the Stegosaurus or Brachiosaurus, which lived tens of millions of years earlier in the Jurassic Period.