THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Unlike its popular movie incarnations, Tyrannosaurus rex – the giant carnivorous dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period – walked slower than previously thought, most likely wandering at human walking speed, new Dutch research shows.
Working with a three-dimensional computer model of “Trix”, a female T. rex skeleton at the Dutch Naturalis Museum, researcher Pasha van Bijlert added computer reconstructions of muscles and ligaments to discover that the dinosaur’s preferred speed is 4.61 km (2.86 km). miles) per hour, close to the walking pace of humans and horses.
In an article on dinosaur movement in the Royal Open Society Science journal, Van Bijlert and his co-authors said that T. rex’s huge tail played an important role in locomotion.
They looked at how the animal would achieve a natural frequency of movement, taking into account not only the leg muscles as in previous studies, but also tail movement, minimizing the amount of energy used.
“The tail would swing up and down with each step (like a giraffe’s neck). If the step rhythm and natural frequency of the tail matched, the tail would resonate, maximizing energy storage,” Van Bijlert said on Twitter.
By calculating the T. Rex’s step rhythm, the researchers estimated the walking speed.
However, it’s too early to believe that a human could have outrun a T. rex: The researchers said they were looking at the terrifying predator’s walking pace and were still investigating its possible top speeds.
There’s no possibility of it being put to the test either, as the species went extinct more than 60 million years before humans appeared on Earth.
(Report by Stephanie van den Berg; edited by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)