Come on, now, admit it . . . Haven’t you always wondered about those little bitty arms? I have.

No, I don’t spend hours contemplating the physiology of a creature that lived 100 million years ago. But I have been to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and I’ve seen snippets of Jurassic Park (though admittedly never watched the whole movie). And those teeny-tiny forelimbs are a matter of some curiosity.

Certainly, they’re interesting enough for scientists to have spent more than a century trying to figure out why Mother Nature would have played such a mean trick on an otherwise fearsome animal. The theories they have posited over the years include the arms being used for holding or pinning down prey; impressing potential mates during courtship (though the aesthetic logic of that one eludes me); reducing the risk of being bitten during feeding frenzies; and simply having shrunk over time because the arms had no practical purpose to begin with.

But now a new study, based on an analysis of 85 species of dinosaurs, concludes that the tiny arms were an evolutionary trade-off for a bigger and stronger head. According to Charlie Roger Scherer, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London who acted as lead author for the study:

“If you’re a dinosaur with a very strongly put together skull, chances are you’re going to have very small forelimbs. And it doesn’t really matter how big you are — you could be 1 ton in weight, or 10 tons in weight. If you have a strong skull, you’re going to have relatively small arms.” [Jacopo Prisco, CNN, May 25, 2026.]

Well, that’s logical — at least, it is if you’re a carnivore in a prehistoric world where you have to butt heads with the competition for your next meal. But when you think about it, it’s also very cool to contemplate.

What if we could make trade-offs the way T-Rex did? Of course, we wouldn’t want to wait millions of years for the changes to evolve. Everything moves a lot faster in today’s world, thanks largely to advanced technologies. Wouldn’t it be nice if our bodies were able to adapt instantly to the rapid changes — for example, by swapping our fat fingers for slimmer ones (especially thumbs) to accommodate the keypads on our cell phones. Or spines designed to withstand the hours of sitting at a computer. And ears shaped to hold earbuds comfortably and securely.

Come to think of it, maybe we could just become like these folks:

We already have the capacity to transplant internal organs, with a very high success rate. And plastic surgery can do wonders for our aging faces, unattractive noses, and sagging breasts. So how far off can interchangeable parts be?

And on that optimistic note, I’d like to put my order in now. It’s a pretty long list, and I’m not getting any younger, so I don’t want to waste a minute.

Yup … that’ll do just fine.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
5/26/26