Tyrannosaurus rex would have been able to outrun a footballer, according to computer models used to estimate running speeds of dinosaurs. The work used data taken directly from dinosaur fossils, rather than referring to previous work on modern animals. The study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that T. rex had a top running speed of 8m/s (18mph). The fastest dinosaur was a small, bipedal and carnivorous species.
How do you retell a 65-million-year-old story? No one thought real dinosaur tissue could ever be found, as it would have degraded aeons ago. But in 2005, North Carolina State University palaeontologist Mary Schweitzer discovered soft tissue in the femur of a Tyrannosaurus rex at an excavation site in Montana, where dinosaurs were entombed by mudflows. Although plenty of dino bones were unearthed before, this was the first time that actual blood cells were identified. The clay-rich mud had sealed the ancient bone, preventing chemical changes and, amazingly, preserving the blood cells. These could provide important clues about the big creatures that once roamed Earth.
To mangle an F. Scott Fitzgerald quotation, the very big hear differently from you and me. In this case, the very big were dinosaurs weighing up to 75 tons. According to a talk by Robert J. Dooling, given Tuesday at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, the beasts could not hear sounds as high as humans hear.
"Dinosaurs Under the Big Sky," the final instalment of the Museum of the Rockies' new Siebel Dinosaur Complex, will open on Saturday, June 9. To celebrate the exhibit's opening day, a "Dinosaurs under the Big Sky" festival will also be held on June 9. Based on the work of Jack Horner, a world-renowned palaeontologist and advisor to the Jurassic Park films, "Dinosaurs Under the Big Sky" features cutting-edge research and challenges the public's conception of dinosaurs and how they lived.
A Tyrannosaurus rex would have had great difficulty getting its jaws on fast, agile prey, a study confirms. A US team has used detailed computer models to work out the weight of a typical "king of the dinosaurs", and determine how it ran and turned. The results indicate a 6-8 tonne T. rex was unlikely to have topped 40km/h (25mph) and would have taken a couple of seconds to swivel 45 degrees. The researchers report their findings in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.
The idea of Tyrannosaurus rex being able to turn quickly and run down fast, agile dinosaurs has been challenged by new research published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. The lead author, John Hutchinson, who currently works at the Royal Veterinary College, has been using biomechanics to ascertain what a typical Tyrannosaurus rex s body mass would have been, how fast it could have run and how quickly it could turn. John and his colleagues developed a new computer modelling system that estimates the centre of mass position and the inertia (resistance to turning), which have ramifications on how T. rex would have stood and moved and what it would have looked like. The research estimates that the complete skeleton of T. rex that they modelled probably weighed in the region of 6000 8000kg in life, but some larger individuals could have been as heavy as 10 tonnes. This unique modelling system has enabled John to estimate the turning ability of a T. rex, which has never been done before. A T. rex would have turned incredibly slowly due to its massive inertia, taking one or two seconds to turn 45 degrees - far slower than a human. The species certainly could not have pirouetted rapidly on one leg, as popular illustrations have sometimes pictured it, and other large dinosaurs, doing. This research also adds new support, with better calculations, for the notion that large tyrannosaurs could not run at 45mph (as often pictured in popular accounts such as movies); 25 mph still seems the extreme maximum speed even with generous assumptions, as its leg muscles couldn't have been big enough for very fast running.
"Previous studies have tried to find one or two numbers to estimate the mass, whereas we did over 30 different computer models, giving a much more definite prediction. From this we now know that a T. rex would have been front heavy, turned slowly and could manage no more than a leisurely jog" - John Hutchinson, Lecturer in biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College.
Biomechanical studies into large extant animals such as elephants often inform palaeontologists of how dinosaurs would have moved. However this new study has shown that a T. rex would not have walked in the same way as an elephant does, with vertical, pillar-like legs to keep its centre of mass over its feet, it needed to bend its legs considerably during standing and moving.
New evidence may help explain the brute strength of the tyrannosaurid, says a University of Alberta researcher whose research findings demonstrate how a fused nasal bone turned the animal into a "zoological superweapon."
"Fused, arch-like nasal bones are a unique feature of tyrannosaurids. This adaptation, for instance, was keeping the T. rexes from breaking their own skull while breaking the bones of their prey" - Dr. Eric Snively, a post doctoral research fellow at the University of Alberta.
The Eastern Montana dinosaur known as B. rex has done it again. The Tyrannosaurus rex that became famous for yielding soft tissue, blood vessels and tissue typical of a female bird has now produced 68-million-year-old protein. Far older than anyone has ever found or expected, the protein came in the form of collagen from the back thigh bone of the oldest T. rex on record. Collagen is the main organic compound found in bone. Its presence is expected to help scientists better understand the relationship between extinct and living organisms.