Measuring the speed of animals that lived more than 66 million years ago can be difficult. There is no speedometer to know how fast they can run, or even muscle soft tissue to fully understand the anatomy of the fastest predators. Still, paleontologists have some ideas about how fast our favorite predatory dinosaurs could run.
They say the only direct evidence we have of dinosaur migration comes from roads and fossilized dinosaur footprints. scott parsonsassistant professor of paleontology at the College of Charleston. Well-preserved dinosaur footprints can be used to determine foot dimensions, which can be used to estimate leg length and determine stride length.
“If you combine this with a lot of careful research that has been done on modern animals and their locomotion biomechanics, we can pretty accurately estimate how fast dinosaurs left their footprints,” Parsons said. say.
read more: Let’s compare Tyrannosaurus and Megalodon, from bite force to speed.
dinosaur chasing prey
(Credit: Orla/Shutterstock)
Still, most of these dinosaurs were just “plodding along” and not in a hurry, so the dinosaur trails don’t tell the whole story. This is because the tracks are often built in mud, and as you can see by walking through the mud, now is not the time to run. Needless to say, if dinosaurs had walked more slowly, their footprints would have been deeper and more likely to be preserved.
The most popular dinosaur predator of all time is tyrannosaurus rex. From about 83 million years ago, this giant predator would have dominated its surroundings, devouring everything. triceratops to ankylosaurus to edmontosaurus And everything in between. It had large teeth the size of a banana, and its bite was powerful. But what is less well known is how tyrannosaurus chased prey.
It has long been debated among paleontologists. tyrannosaurus I could run. At 40 feet long and weighing over 11,000 pounds, jogging seemed difficult. However, according to Parsons, tyrannosaurus It could probably reach a meaningful pace around 25 mph. There is a possibility that tyrannosaurus A small cousin of Tyrannosaurus, gorgosaurusDinosaurs in the tyrannosaurid family were even faster, making them among the fastest of all dinosaur predators, Parsons said.
read more: Cretaceous cows: four charming duck-billed dinosaurs
Speed and endurance of ancient predators
(Credit: Catmando/Shutterstock)
When discussing whether dinosaurs were fast, it’s important to define whether we’re talking about sprint speed or endurance. The same goes for survival today. meanwhile cheetah Pronghorn can reach speeds of 60 miles per hour for long periods of time, although short bursts of speed are listed at 100 miles per hour.
Please take it Troodon for example. As one of the smartest dinosaurs, it had the largest brain-to-body ratio of any other dinosaur. We also know that this small theropod could probably run fast, although we don’t know how fast.
Troodon They had long shin bones and long metatarsals, or bones in the flat part of the foot, Parsons says. We know from other modern animals like cheetahs that long leg bones below the knees are important for high speed. VelociraptorOn the other hand, it would not have been possible to run this fast. Troodon Because they didn’t have the same leg skeletal structure.
It was also true that the prey of the dinosaur era likely had endurance. Judging by the bones in his legs, Parsons said: Hadrosaurusor duck-billed herbivorous dinosaurs, could run for long periods of time to escape predators.
read more: The real-life inspiration behind ‘Jurassic Park’ Velociraptor
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Sarah Novak is a science journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her work has appeared in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and more. She graduated from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She is also a master’s candidate in science writing at Johns Hopkins University (scheduled to graduate in 2023).
