"Could a T. Rex lift a woolly mammoth?"

Well, no. T. Rex lived 65-80 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous Period. The first woolly mammoth didn't appear until millions of years later, in the Pleistocene. So the T. Rex would never have gotten the chance.

But what if time were no obstacle?

If a smack-down between a T. Rex and a woolly mammoth were to happen... "Don't make them fight, Mommyo."

So if a woolly mammoth were to fall off a cliff as a T. Rex was walking by, would the T. Rex have enough strength in those scrawny little arms to help the mammoth back on its feet?

T. Rex's famously tiny arms were a mere 3 feet long on an animal that easily reached 40 feet long. (My arm, for comparison, appears to be just over 2 feet long, while my 4-year-old daughter's is a mere 16 inches.)

Still, famously tiny apparently doesn't mean famously scrawny. Although a T. Rex's arms may not be that much longer than yours or mine, the bones in those arms are three times as thick as a human arm bone. Wrap those babies in muscles and tendons and you've got a pretty good surge in strength over the average human arm as well, with many studies claiming the T. Rex could hoist an impressive-sounding 400 pounds.

Then again, so can the much lighter weight Liao Hui of China. So maybe that's not so impressive. Especially when you have a 6-8 ton (12,000-16,000 pound) woolly mammoth to lift.

"What about a baby, Mommyo? Could a T. Rex lift a baby mammoth?"

According to the Kyodo News Service, a frozen 6-month-old baby mammoth was found in Russia in July 2007. The baby weighed in at approximately 110 pounds.

So if a frozen baby mammoth were to fall off a cliff as a T. Rex were walking by, the T. Rex could have easily helped him back onto his feet. Assuming the fall (or the freeze) didn't kill the baby mammoth first.

And while the T. Rex could chomp 50 lbs of meat in a single bite, Mama Mammoth wouldn't have to worry about that happening to her baby in our scenario. Since my little Caterpickle is requiring our hypothetical T. Rex to behave like a gentleman this morning, our friend T. Rex will only use his arms to lift the baby mammoth, and a T. Rex's arms aren't long enough to reach his mouth.

Related Articles:

• If T. Rex fell, how did it get up? (Scientific American)
• T. Rex Arm Muscles (monjungle)
• Tyrannosaurus Rex (cracked.com)

Although Caterpickles only appears once a week on the Patch, you can find a new post every day at caterpickles.com. C'mon over. This week we're talking about free, yet meaningful holiday gifts for the bloggers in your life, wheelchairs, and pigs in space.