Experts have claimed until now that the T-Rex, which was about five and a half meters tall, was clumsy and this means that it moved like a slow street sweeper and ate carrion, but new calculations made using supercomputers showed that the T. Rex could run at a speed of about 29 km/h , only slightly more than the fastest footballer
Simulation of a running competition between dinosaurs, birds and humans. Illustration - the researchers
The Tyrannosaurus Rex could have outrun David Beckham in a running competition. This is according to a study published on Wednesday by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Great Britain. The scientists simulated the skeletal structure of six types of dinosaurs, humans and some large birds - all walking on two feet, and also evaluated the muscle structure of the extinct creatures to estimate how they ran and what their maximum speed was.
Experts have claimed until now that the T-Rex, which was about five and a half meters tall, was clumsy and this means that it moved like a slow street sweeper and ate carrion, but new calculations made using supercomputers showed that the T. Rex could run at a speed of about 29 km/h .
The scientists from the University of Manchester calculated the running speed of five species of meat-eating dinosaurs that ranged from Composgamatos, which weighed 3 kg, to T. Rex, which weighed 6.5 tons. The fastest group were, of course, the Composgametuses - who could reach a speed of 64 km/h - 8 km/h more than the estimated speed of the fastest creature that moves on two legs - the ostrich.
The Velociraptor, a 14 kg killer who starred in the "Jurassic Park" films, could run at a speed of 38 km/h, researchers estimate.
"In the research, we fed data about the skeleton and muscle structure of the dinosaurs directly into the supercomputer so that it could estimate how the animal could move." says Bill Sellers, a biomechanics expert who was one of the authors of the study.
In fact the only thing the researchers had to guess was the strength and density of the dinosaurs' muscles because the muscles are not fossilized and therefore the researchers had to fill in the blanks from animals alive today. "We entered the anatomical data into the model and the computer itself chose the best way to activate the muscles in the model to maximize the animal's running speed." says Sellers.
"Previous calculations relied on data from living creatures moving on two legs to estimate how fast the dinosaurs could run," he said. "These calculations can accurately predict the speed that a chicken weighing six tons will reach, but the dinosaur was not built like a chicken and did not run like it.
It takes a computer about a week to learn the biomechanics of each animal, from the first clumsy step to the development of maximum running speed in the optimal walking position, says Sellers, who led the team along with paleontologist Phil Manning.
The computer accurately predicted that a person with the bone and muscle structure of a professional athlete would be able to reach a speed of 28.5 km/h, only 0.3 km/h less than T. Rex whose maximum speed according to the calculation is 28.8 km/h. To further test the methodology, the computer also calculated the speed of the South American emu weighing 30 kg and the ostrich weighing 65 kg - which reach speeds of 48 and 56 km/h respectively.
Other dinosaurs whose speed has been calculated include a Diposaurus that weighed 430 kg and could reach a speed of 33.5 km/h and an Allosaurus that weighed 1.5 tons and whose speed reached 38 km/h.
In the future, Dr. Sellers and his staff wish to produce a XNUMXD simulation of dinosaurs that will allow them to study the entire range of movements that the reptiles were capable of performing. "At this point the computers are not big enough for all the data we want to put into the model and all our demands from the model. It takes a long time to teach the dog to walk. The next step is to advance to XNUMXD. They are now working with animators on a dinosaur model because it uses the musculoskeletal model as a starting point, anything we manage to do with the animal, these are things they have done in real life.”
to the University of Manchester press release
A computer model showed: TREX could not run (news from 2002)
One response
Every Monday and Thursday the speed is changed to TREX …….
Poor thing, he must be seasick from that.