When one tries to think of a real life tyrannosaur, it appears to be terrifying, needing no effort to imagine it chasing down prey with lightning speed! Am sure, you too, will draw a similar picture of its activities.
But, after all, this is fiction and it’s vulnerable to challenges. New computer models claim that these terrifying extinct creatures were actually ‘slowpokes!’
Unlike the previous studies that studied the movements of birds — the direct descendents of dinosaurs — and fossilized footprints to understand how Tyrannosaurus rex would have moved, the new study modeled a typical complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton to get a better estimation of the giant’s movement.
Probably weighing between about 13,000 and 17,000 pounds, the tyrannosaurs’ estimated center of mass and the inertia, or resistance to movement, would have had when it turned or pivoted.
The model results reveal that the Tyrannosaurus rex would have had inertia enough to prevent it from turning quickly, i.e. a 45-degree turn would have taken one or two seconds, which is far longer than for a human.
Thus, the front heavy Tyrannosaurus rex would have turned slowly and could manage no more than a leisurely jog, unlike what we have seen in fictions.
