3300: Tyrannosaurus

Tyrannosaurus

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Title text: Many of the smaller dinosaurs seem to have largely preyed on housecats.

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Explanation

This is one of 53 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a CAT-NIVOROUS DINOSAUR and a BANANA FOR SCALE. Don't remove this notice too soon. You can help by editing the explanation!

This comic is a play on artistic reconstructed depictions of dinosaurs, and specifically, in this case, Tyrannosaurus rex. Often, in order to allow viewers to get a concrete idea of the size of the creature, an easily recognizable and sizeable being, like a human or a cat, is placed next to it, for scale. However, the person lecturing about these pictures seems to have come to the conclusion that they are depictions of a real scene, where a human had actually encountered a Tyrannosaurus rex. This would make the human an easy target for the dinosaur, and hence good prey (as previously discussed in the what if? article T-rex Calories). In reality, neither humans nor cats had evolved by the time the majority of the dinosaurs went extinct, so it would be impossible for a T-Rex to be able to eat a human or cat.

The title text is an extension of the misconception to smaller dinosaurs. Humans have had lots of contact with domestic cats, so a cat would serve as a good scale comparison in a reconstruction of such a dinosaur. However, if domestic cats were in the same environment as small carnivorous dinosaurs, there is a good chance that the dinosaurs would attempt to prey on them.

Transcript

[Miss Lenhart uses a stick to point at a poster behind her. On the poster there are two lines of illegible text above silhouettes of a Tyrannosaurus rex and a human right in front of the dinosaur.]

Miss Lenhart: We now believe the primary prey of Tyrannosaurus rex was these humans who kept standing next to it for scale.

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Discussion

Cool symmetric number and FIRST POST!I!!Ll! 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 22:59, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

In all seriousness, though, Randall seems to be exploring "the artistic depiction is the reality" a lot lately... 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 23:07, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Since I've started to blab to myself like this, I'm suprised Wikipedia has no article on the concept of an object for scale. I did a search (here) and was presented with Torino scale (no), List of Solar System objects by size (no), Object storage (eh), Weighing scale (I mean... if we're talking weight not size maybe?), Bortle scale (nope-itty), and then Battle for Dream Island (oh crepe). Anyone wanna coauthor an article? 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 04:42, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

It seems like Fiducial marker might be that page. (searched "Banana for scale", was redirected to a section of that article) Treeplate (talk) 23:26, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Hmm... It would seem that while it does mention the meme, the article mainly focuses as using objects as actual measurements, while an "object for scale mostly refers to the idea of simply showing the proportional size of a larger object, using a smaller object "for scale." So while it is a potential candidate, an official wikipedia article of an object for scale would probably work better. Also, replying to OP, yes i would be interested in co-authoring an article about this. If you want to talk to me about this my main account is @Infortaly. 108.227.177.69 01:38, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

if you love symmetry, just wait ~53 days until comic 3333. (why 53? well, since the comic release follows the pattern "2, 2, 3" for releases, if you count up one strip per x days (x follows the release pattern), when you reach 33 strips, you should have around 53 days, but it's possible i counted wrong) 108.227.177.69 18:28, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Number 3333, barring any 'extras' or other messing about, should be on 4/Dec/2026, 77 days from 'now' (actually from two days ago, as I write). Not sure exactly how you differed from this but, mathematically, 33 comics later than this comic is 11 weeks (three a week, so 33/3), which is therefore 77 days (11*7). And that's exactly right (at least from 18/Sep, not from 13/Oct, as it almost probably is as you're reading this), because it's a multiple of 3. It could be up to a day away, after rounding, for other comic-differences.)

The comic 53 days after 'now' is 53/7 weeks, and thus *3 comics, away. Roughly 23 comics away. Though the actual nearest one to that is 52 days later than 3300, and 22 comics later, due to the slight change in release frequency across the week. "3322" has a sort of interesting 'patterned number', but not really symmetrical.

On the other hand, 3301 might be acceptably symmetric in the same way. To be followed by 3303, 3308, 3310 then 3311 (that last one on 14/Oct), for starters. We're stil talking the same horizontal-mirrorline reflective symmetry, and it's a bit dependent upon the precise font/handwriting style in use.

Rotationally, we'd be looking at comic 5005, which can (sort of) be considered to have two identical rotational positions. Beaten slightly by the vertically-mirrored 5002 (all this assuming a rough 7-seg-display style of numbering). Can't really do either of those with any 3xxx or 4xxx number, in decimal. Though you might get away with it if we were using hexadecimal. (33EE might work, base-implied, or 4000h for a particular base-indicating notation.)

Not that we'd be on number 3300 at this same point in a Hex-based counting system. This one would be 'just' CE4h (or 0xCE4, if you insist), and I think we need to go to (decimal) comic 3587, i.e. E03 in its implicit form, before we get a decent kind of symmetry (nicely, though, this one has both types of mirror and the half-rotation one!), which would be ...Wednesday 19/Jul/2027, in 670 days?

Well, that was a nice diversion. Hopefully I've not made too many mistakes along the way! 89.243.22.209 20:30, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Hello, I’m the person who made this comment (I posted it from a kindle, so I wasn’t logged in). As I was writing my comment, I did think about the math that it should be like that, but I guess I counted wrong lol. I guess if we want that perfect symmetry, we just have to wait a bit. But if the last one would be in July of 2027, i believe the day count would be less than 670 as July of 2027 is less than 365 days away. Or maybe you just meant 2028 and I’m overthinking this. Anyways this was some interesting insight to my silly rambling, thank you : ) Informationaly (talk) 22:42, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I made a simple typo, on the 2027/2028 issue. Which may mean I've typed something else wrong! Whether or not I've thought anything else wrong, too. :P 89.243.22.209 00:20, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I think all of us think wrong and nobody is right lol. (wait… doesn’t that statement contradict itself?) Informationaly (talk) 00:55, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I was certain xkcd had made a variation on this joke before, so I googled "xkcd why are you waving dinosaur" and received the AI response

The phrase "Why are you waving?! RUN!!!" is a classic internet meme that didn't actually originate from the webcomic xkcd, though it matches its geeky, stick-figure humor style perfectly. Instead, the quote comes from a popular SnorgTees graphic shirt and science meme poking fun at dinosaur size comparison charts.

I was actually impressed with the quality of the AI answer until I immediately googled "why are you waving run" and received the reply

I am not waving or running! As an AI, I don't have a physical body to move around.

I guess you win some, you lose some... Mathmannix (talk) 03:43, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

This often seems to happen. The world could do with a convention. #Why or #What means the question word is part of a quoted phrase, not introducing a direct question to the AI. MalcolmStory21 (talk) 20:05, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I thought the shirt was his too, and I know the merchandise available on the store today is different than what it was long ago, but I could believe it's a composite memory. Student Driver (talk) 03:37, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Non-avian dinosaurs of the Hell Creek Formation

Some poor people have nowhere to run, though. (See image.) --93.241.210.5 08:34, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Food chain: Human→Tyrannosaurus rex→Miss Lenhart 799571388 (talk) 03:30, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Has anyone else noticed that the 'random' button on the xkcd page brings you to comics that you viewed recently?--2600:4040:59D9:BF00:188D:1A9A:B855:5405 20:03, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Apparently, at about the same time as this comic, YT premiered an indie animation about a T-Rex rampaging through a modern city full of other, domesticated dinos. Probably a coincidence, especially as Randall seems to have posted earlier, but he would totally dig that (except for the lack of feathers). 94.249.207.231 12:05, 23 September 2026 (UTC)
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