Scientists recently learned something new about the most notorious dinosaur ever. Tyrannosaurus rex’s body temperature was similar to the body temperature of a human.

Most scientists had already agreed that T. rex was warm-blooded, which means it could keep its body temperature stable. That is different from cold-blooded animals, like alligators and snakes, whose body temperatures change to match their environments.

T. rex would have been able to live in both hot and cold areas because its body temperature would not have been affected by the outside air. This ability to survive just about anywhere may have helped T. rex become a top predator.

Scientists learned about T. rex’s body temperature by studying fossilized T. rex teeth. Atoms inside tooth enamel are arranged in different ways depending on an animal’s body temperature.

In the case of T. rex, that temperature was about 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius). That’s about the same as an elephant’s temperature and not very different from the usual human body temperature of about 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C). 

This is the first time scientists have been able to determine just how warm T. rex’s body was. 

“We figured out how warm the most famous animal of all, a T. rex, was,” Aradhna Tripati, a geochemist who worked on the study, told the Associated Press.

Scientists look forward to using the tooth enamel method to determine the body temperatures of other extinct species. This information could help scientists understand how these species survived in their environments.