Dinosaurs, Speed and other things

[Majin Gojira]

With the whole hoopla over the recent Dinosaur Mummy and re-evaluation of the base speed and how they looked, and all that. There's something I about it that's bugging me.

With the new information about the leg and tail muscles being related and the new top speed of a hadrosaur being 28mph, it is often compared to the T-Rex speed number of 20mph.

But, from appearances, and do correct me if I am wrong, the new muscle information was not applied to the T-Rex numbers, so rex might be slightly or greatly faster than the previously estimated speed.

So, I am wondering what the old information of Hadrosaur speed was? Before the mummy came to light, how fast were they thought to be? It could be a basis for comparison for us laymen at least.

[Molyneux]

With the whole hoopla over the recent Dinosaur Mummy and re-evaluation of the base speed and how they looked, and all that. There's something I about it that's bugging me.

With the new information about the leg and tail muscles being related and the new top speed of a hadrosaur being 28mph, it is often compared to the T-Rex speed number of 20mph.

But, from appearances, and do correct me if I am wrong, the new muscle information was not applied to the T-Rex numbers, so rex might be slightly or greatly faster than the previously estimated speed.

So, I am wondering what the old information of Hadrosaur speed was? Before the mummy came to light, how fast were they thought to be? It could be a basis for comparison for us laymen at least.

Back in high school, I did a research project on T. rex; if I recall correctly, the analysis of its leg structure indicated a top speed of more than 20 mph, closer to 25.

[Academia Nut]

Yes, it was said that in order to push it above a certain speed value the T. rex would have to have ridiculously huge leg muscles. With the discovery that its prey species did have ridiculously huge leg muscles, this probably will change views on the rex. It will have to either be faster or a quite successful ambush predator, or as has been suggested, they may have worked in packs to herd their prey.

[Cykeisme]

I haven't been keeping in touch with development on dinosaur discoveries.. is there an article of some sort with good detailed information on this new finding?

Does it mean that dinosaurs may differ significantly in shape from how they were previously envisioned (especially leg proportions)?

[Flagg]

I haven't been keeping in touch with development on dinosaur discoveries.. is there an article of some sort with good detailed information on this new finding?

Does it mean that dinosaurs may differ significantly in shape from how they were previously envisioned (especially leg proportions)?

Thread with article

Apparently dinosaurs are about a meter longer than previousely though due to there being much larger spaces in between vertebrate than previousely thought. They are also alot chunkier in the abdomen, leg, and tail areas. At least hadrosaurs were.

I definately think it's time to start rethinking the "slow" T-Rex based on this. We know they fed on hadrosaurs, so either they were land crocodiles, or the fuckers could move.

[Darth Raptor]

A popular hypothesis is that juvenile tyrannosaurs (themselves not exactly small) scared up the hadrosaurs and chased them into the waiting jaws of mommy and/or daddy. This is based on the leg anatomy of T. rex juveniles being significantly more gracile than that of their adult counterparts. Juvenile tyrannosaur ankles were long and thin, similar to that of ornithomimids whom we know to be long distance endurance runners. Whereas the legs of adult specimens have been mostly short and stout for quick bursts of speed and power; akin to a grossly scaled up dromaeosaurid.

[ArmorPierce]

Why is it that they haven't been able to discover the actual muscle size until now? Wouldn't they be able to do this by looking to the bone to determine muscle size?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Why is it that they haven't been able to discover the actual muscle size until now? Wouldn't they be able to do this by looking to the bone to determine muscle size?

They can get it to within a wide range. But just like a human, one can fit varying amounts opf muscle on the same frame with the same connective tissue

[Academia Nut]

Plus, as mentioned, we have to model everything off of organisms we know about. If we've just had to significantly increase the length of the hadrosaur because the connective tissue between the vertebrae was larger than suspected, then there are all sorts of new uncertainties thrown into the models. Dinosaur biomechanics are by nature a mishmash of studying large mammals, birds, and certain reptiles, particularly the crocodilians. The only problem is that hundreds of millions of years of evolution seperate all three groups from the dinosaurs, so the actual biomechanics are simply "best guesses" most of the time.