Web devours dinosaur video

Is there anything more eyeball-catching than topless supermodels sunbathing on pleasure craft? Well, yes -- when that something is a baby Tyrannosaurus rex freely roaming the halls of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Without any ballyhoo, the museum launched a new attraction in June called Dinosaur Encounters, in which actor-puppeteers don lifelike T. rex or triceratops suits and demonstrate how scientists believe baby dinos behaved. Usually they work with interpreter-handlers, but sometimes they just roam free and meet their public.

Which is how a museum-goer’s video of a grunting, bemused, 7-foot-tall and 14-foot-long T. rex inspecting babes-in-arms and other humans at close range came to be posted on MySpacetv on Thursday. “Real Live Dinosaur” shot to No. 1 on MySpace’s daily video chart, attracting more than 215,000 viewers by early evening and far outstripping “Cindy and Heidi Bare It All.” That clip from TMZ featured stills of Crawford and Klum yachting au naturel, their modesty preserved by strategically placed black bars.

-- Mike Boehm