T. rex speed limit calculated by scientists, according to BBC News 18 July 2017, ABC News 19 July 2017 and PeerJ doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3420 published online 18 July 2017.
A group of scientists in the UK has used a computer modelling technique to estimate how fast T-rex could have moved. Their method takes into account the strength of the bones as well as estimates of muscle strength and the mechanical advantage of the long limb bones. They concluded that, in spite of having long limbs and strong muscles, the bone strength would have restricted the most popular of dinosaurs to only being able to walk but not run.
William Sellers of Manchester University, who led the study explained: “The muscles need to be able to generate sufficient power to allow high-speed locomotion, but at the same time the skeleton has to be able to cope with the loads generated by the high speed”. He went on to say “This is where it fails. T-rex’s skeleton is simply not strong enough for running locomotion”.
The research team estimated a maximum speed of approximately 5metres/second. This is about 18km/hr or 11mph.
Sellers commented to the BBC “T rex is everyone’s favourite dinosaur, and palaeontologists have been arguing for years about how fast it could run because this would tell us something about its hunting style and the way it caught its prey. This project used a highly realistic computer simulation to predict how T rex moved, and it shows that running would have been impossible because its skeleton just isn’t strong enough. That means that T rex was actually quite slow and therefore not a pursuit predator.”
Editorial Comment: This is not the first study to cast doubt on the popular image of T rex as fierce predator chasing down small creatures in a dinosaur-eat-dinosaur evolutionary world. That may be a problem for movie makers and museum displays, but a lumbering slow T rex is not a problem for the Biblical history of dinosaurs.
Genesis tells us that all animals, dinosaurs included, were created to eat plants. Not being able to run is therefore not a problem, as plants don’t run either. After the world degenerated due to human sin and God’s judgement, some animals first became scavengers then predators, as by the time of Noah the world was filled with violence.
The new data indicates the worst T. rex, may have become was a scavenger, eating already dead creatures. But since we also know it was short sighted, that wouldn’t have been a problem as dead things don’t run away either.
Vegetarian turned scavenger may not be glamourous for the movies, but it is part of the sad truth that the real history of the world is from a very good creation, to the degenerate sin corrupted world, where dinosaurs have died out altogether.
Evidence News vol. 17 No. 15
2 August 2017
Creation Research Australia
Were you helped by this item? If so, consider making a donation so we can keep sending out Evidence News and add more items to this archive. For USA tax deductible donations click here. For UK tax deductible donations click here. For Australia and rest of world click here.