T. rex would have traveled just under 3 miles in less than an hour – a speed similar to that of humans and many other animals – according to the preferred walking speed, according to new calculations by Dutch paleontologists. However, this pace is slower than other estimates about the running speed of the tyranthagedis king.
If they have no reason to run, most animals – including humans – have a natural walking speed that reduces the amount of body energy spent.
In earlier estimates, the role of the T. rex’s tail – which accounts for more than half of its length – has not been fully taken into account, said Pasha van Bijlert, leader. author of a new study on T. rex movement published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
“Animals prefer the walking speed for which energy costs are minimal for a given time. They do this by choosing specific step rhythms on which their body parts resonate. Since the entire tail of T. rex is suspended by ligaments, which are like elastics, we constructed this tail to investigate at what rhythm the tail of T. rex would resonate, “said van Bijlert, a graduate student in paleo-biomechanics. at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, by e-mail.
“The whole tail, through our reconstruction of almost 1 000 kilos, was really just a mass supported by an elastic band, and with each step it would bounce up and down slightly. With the right rhythm you get a lot of movement for very little effort. ”
The research team calculated a step rhythm from a computer model of a T. rex tail, based on Trix, a mature 12 meter long (39 feet long) T. rex fossil at the Naturalist Biodiversity Center, a museum of natural history and research center in the Netherlands. The scientists then multiply the step rhythm by the step length found in petrified tracks, for an estimated base speed of 2.86 miles per hour.
Van Bijlert says that other methods focus mainly on calculations based on the legs and hips. They certainly play a crucial role in estimates, but calculations based only on these parts of the dino anatomy can lead to inaccurate results. This is because T. rex and many other dinosaurs had unique tails that are not found in any other living animal today.
Similar to the walking speed of animals today
Understanding how a top predator like T. rex moved can help paleontologists better understand the behavior of dinosaurs and ancient ecosystems, and answer questions such as: How much food did that large body need at that speed? to move? How far would it have been to find prey?
For example, a T. rex would use his preferred walking speed when walking to a water source, Van Bijlert said. “It can also give you an idea of what kind of distances you can look through when looking for food.”
He did not estimate the maximum speed of the T. rex in this research, but plans to do so in the future using the same method.
John Hutchinson, a professor of evolutionary biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College in London, said the role that tails played was a neglected topic in dinosaur motion studies.
“What speed giant tyrannosaurs would normally walk at was not a big question for many studies, but it is still an interesting question. The approach used here complements more popular muscle-based simulation studies and, on a way, to fossil footprint data, ”he said in an email.
“This study cleverly covers a new foundation with an original model. It is interesting and useful to integrate and compare with other approaches in the future.”
What surprised Van Bijlert most about the research was that the T. rex walking speed the team found was similar to that of a variety of animals still alive today.
“Humans, ostriches, horses, elephants, giraffes, lynxes and gazelles all have a remarkably narrow distribution in the preferred speed (about 2.2 – 3.1 mph), so it includes both bipeds and quadrupeds, and also both relatively small and large animals, ‘he said in an email.
“The interesting thing is that our new method predicts that T. rex has a lower walking speed than other methods, but the speed we find is closer to many animals alive today.”