Issue 14 cience Read August 28 - Assumption English School...immature T. rex, as opposed to a...
Transcript of Issue 14 cience Read August 28 - Assumption English School...immature T. rex, as opposed to a...
SCIENCE & SOCIETY - #dinosaurs #Trex
YOU COULD PROBABLY
OUTRUN A T. REX
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Issue 14
28 August
Upper Secondary
A rare set of tyrannosaur footprints is giving
researchers insight into the walking speed of the
prehistoric beasts, and it’s possible that humans
might have been able to outrun them.
According to the new estimate, Tyrannosaurus rex
may have ambled as quickly as 8 kilometers per
hour slower than a plodding amateur marathon
runner or even a middle-aged power walker.
Well-preserved individual tracks can be used to
help identify the size and type of dinosaur that
created the imprint. Fossilized tyrannosaur tracks
are rare, even in areas where their skeletal fossils
are abundant, says Scott Persons, a vertebrate
paleontologist at the University of Alberta in
Canada, and lead author of the new study.
Containing three footprints, the new trackway was
found in 66-million-year-old rocks that formed
along an ancient shoreline in what is now Wyoming.
The first footprint is well preserved, with three toes
facing forward and one short, thumb-like toe facing
rearward. This arrangement marks its maker as a
meat-eating theropod dinosaur, Persons says.
The only theropods known to have lived in the
region at the time—and large enough to have
created the 47-centimeter-wide track—were
tyrannosaurs. If the trackmaker were the mighty T.
rex, it probably would have been an adolescent.
Even rarer sets of footprints, or
trackways, can reveal more,
says Persons, as the spacing and
arrangement of individual
footprints can provide insights
into dinosaur gaits and walking
speeds.
Just outside the tiny town of Glenrock, Wyoming the footprints
of a 66-million-year-old monster are cemented in stone. This
fossil trackway was brought to light with the help of University of Alberta paleontologist, Scott Persons. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-01-track-tyrannosaur-trail.html#jCp
The other possibility, says Persons, is a smaller
theropod called Nanotyrannus lancensis, which
some paleontologists suggest is merely an
immature T. rex, as opposed to a separate species.
Whatever species made the track, the calculations
reveal that the creature had a “brisk walking
speed,” Persons says. To figure out just how fast it
was moving, Persons and his team first estimated
how high the dinosaur’s hips must have been
above the ground, based on the length of the
footprint.
Three different Tyrannosaurus specimens of different ages
(credit: David Hone / Los Angeles County Museum)
Using two common formulas, they determined
the creature’s hips were likely somewhere
between 1.56 and 2.07 meters off the ground.
Then, they measured the distance between the
footprints and used an equation based on
observations of living, walking bipeds to estimate
the dinosaur’s walking speed, yielding a result
between 4.5 and 8 kilometres per hour.
Measurements of a Tyrannosaur’s fossilized footprint
help researchers estimate that the ancient beast was at the time walking between 4.5 and 8 kilometers per hour
The analysis doesn't prove that T. Rex couldn't have
gone faster, however. Because trackways are
records of single events—one walk along a
lakeshore, for example—the odds are that any
particular set of footprints doesn’t capture a
dinosaur’s peak performance, says Thomas Holtz
Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of
Maryland, College Park.
Moreover, he notes, the types of sediment that are
good for preserving footprints are typically wet and
sloppy, not the best surface on which a dinosaur
could run full speed. McCrea agrees: “There are as
yet no known trackways of running tyrannosaurs,
so we don’t know for sure just what their upper
speed limit was.”
One previous study of a single footprint of a large
tyrannosaur suggests that the beast could have
been traveling as fast as 11 kilometers per hour (6.8
miles per hour), says Eric Snively, a vertebrate
paleontologist at the University of Wisconsin, La
Crosse. That's still a speed that a halfway decent
amateur runner could beat. “If you were out
walking a juvenile T. rex, you’d be comfortable at a
brisk walk,” he says. “If you were walking an adult,
you’d be jogging.”
Adapted from: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/you-could-probably-have-outrun-t-rex
Answer the question below to win simple but attractive prizes! Submissions are to be dropped online through the QR code or website. The submission should include your name and class. Each student can only make one submission.
Question: How fast is a tyrannosaur believed to be able
to walk?
Quiz URL: http://tinyurl.com/ScienceRead2017
Quiz Time!