How Fast Did T. Rex Run? by David Hone;

Author:David Hone; [Hone;, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691242514
Publisher: Princeton UP
Published: 2022-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

Digital models of a pair of anyklosaurs floating in water (left, Euoplocephalus, right Sauropelta). Models like this allow us to assess how such animals might have floated, how they might have swum, and what could happen to their bodies if they died in water. Images by Don Henderson.

As with the point about goats above, animals don’t necessarily need to show a suite of adaptations to be decent and active diggers in some circumstances. The (orange and rather furry) Sumatran rhinoceros can dig quite large and deep pits to make into a mud wallow for themselves, despite lacking any real specialisations for the activity. Though for the rhinos this is probably helped by the relatively soft and moist rainforest soils, it would seem odd indeed if no other dinosaurs were engaging in similar behaviours and, when studied, some could easily reveal something of an anatomical link to doing just this kind of thing.

Overall, biomechanics is a booming area of research for dinosaurs, with the ongoing advancements in technology allowing better and easier analyses of complex motions and stresses and enabling researchers to delve deep into the physics of posture and motion. Of all the aspects covered in this book, this is perhaps the one field where most of the major pieces are in play and it’s mostly a matter of time until enough researchers tackle these questions and then we will have major answers.

In the background, work by non-palaeontologists developing new technologies and software to allow better and faster calculations, and anatomists providing more in-depth understanding of living animals, will keep pushing this field into being ever more accurate. For now the overlap between palaeontology and biomechanics is limited, in that there are few researchers with the expertise to dive deep into this area, but it’s growing in depth and breadth and this is surely an area with some major new innovations and answers coming in the very near future.

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