Raptors’ short legs made them slow runners
Posted Jan 27, 2016 7:14 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new study from the University of Alberta shows a dinosaur’s speed is all in its legs.
Researchers looked at carnivorous dinosaurs who had to hunt down their prey, and found those with longer lower legs were capable of running faster than those with shorter lower legs.
Taking the leg measurement and combining it with a dinosaur’s weight helped them figure out how fast each species could run.
“We see that with modern day animals, for instance, a cheetah has proportionately longer lower legs than does a lion, and a lion has proportionately longer lower legs than does, say, a hyena. And that bears in terms of the maximum speed those animals can run at,” Author Scott Persons said.
A scene from the original Jurassic Park might have had you believing velociraptors were one of the fastest species, but this study says it’s not even close.
“In fact, velociraptor, and many of the other raptor dinosaurs are the least adapted for high-speed running,” explained Persons.
The ultimate winner is the nanotyrannus, which Persons calls the Usain Bolt of the dinosaur kingdom.
