There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
As the title of the topic says, a new study published on April 21, 2021 shows newer estimates on how fast a Tyrannosaurus might of was. Earlier estimates (Sellers 2017) had not taken fully into account the role of the T. rex's tail - which makes up more than half its length. Pasha Van Bijlert, is the lead author of this new study on Tyrannosaurus locomotion which is published in the Journal Royal Society Open Science. Sellers 2017 bio-mechanic study had it's issues treating the Tyrannosaurus legs as if they were graviportal, posing them in a columnar manner. However, the limbs of Tyrannosaurus were not built to be graviportal, those are the legs of a cursorial animal. The research team calculated a step rhythm from a computer model of a Tyrannosaurus tail, based on Trix, an adult 12-meter-long (39-foot-long) Tyrannosaurus fossil at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a museum of natural history and research center in the Netherlands. The scientists then multiplied the step rhythm by the step length found in fossilized tracks for an estimated baseline walking speed of 2.86 miles per hour. This is a far cry from the proposed 11-12mph brisk walking estimates from William Sellers 2017 study. Pasha Van Bijert said:
"Animals tend to prefer walking speeds at which, for a given distance, energy cost is minimal. They do this choosing specific step rhythms at which their body parts resonate. Since the entire tail of T. rex is suspended by ligaments, which behave like rubber bands, we reconstructed this tail to investigate at which step rhythm the tail of T. rex would resonate. The entire tail, by our reconstruction at almost 1,000 kilos, was really just a mass supported by a rubber band and with every step it would slightly bounce up and down. With the right rhythm you get a lot of movement for very little effort. Our baseline model had a preferred walking speed of 2.86 mph [4.6 km/h], which was significantly slower than earlier estimates of walking speed. Depending on some of the assumptions regarding the ligaments and how the vertebrae rotate, you get slightly slower or faster speeds (1.79 to 3.67 mph [2.88 to 5.9 km/h]), but across the board, they're all slower than earlier estimates"
This makes me question whether or not adult sized Tyrannosaurus were capable of hunting or not. I was firm to believe that prey such as Triceratops or Ankylosaurus were just as slow but with these newer estimates I'm doubting that adult sized Tyrannosaurus did hunt. Even though the risks of hunting such prey were too high, Triceratops or Ankylosaurus were not the first thing they would go for. The size of Tyrannosaurus brain is, rather unsurprisingly, quite small in proportion to its body. But it's not its total size I'm referring to. It's the proportions of the brain itself. It's no secret that the largest portion of the brain is the olfactory lobe, the part of the brain devoted to scent processing. This new study definitely ignites evidence that adult Tyrannosaurus relied on scavenging rather than hunting compared to the juvenile ones, where speed is not that big of an issue. Finding enough dead carcasses can be rather difficult, but rotting meat can carry a scent for miles in any direction. If your a scavenger, like an old world vulture shall we say, all you have to do is point, and fly, or in T. Rex's case walk, to the source of the smell. Couldn't be easier. Also as a small point, while Old World vultures use smell to find carcasses, New World vultures often rely on their eyesight. Now we know Tyrannosaurus had some really good eyesight, so perhaps young Tyrannosaurus used it to hunt, but as they got older it could've shifted to find carcasses. Just a thought. (Credit goes to vcubestudios for the information)
Never mind outrunning a Tyrannosaurus, you could probably out walk it
