Never mind outrunning a T. rex – you could probably outwalk it(livescience.com) |
Never mind outrunning a T. rex – you could probably outwalk it(livescience.com) |
The article itself cites researchers saying: "the study authors want to incorporate their flexible tail into models of a running T. rex, van Bijlert said. Maximum running speed for a T. rex is thought to be in the range of 10 to 25 mph (16 to 40 km/h), according to Hutchinson."
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As for T. rex's next steps, the study authors want to incorporate their flexible tail into models of a running T. rex, van Bijlert said. Maximum running speed for a T. rex is thought to be in the range of 10 to 25 mph (16 to 40 km/h), according to Hutchinson. Biomechanics researchers have long proposed that T. rex's maximum running speed would be limited by the strength of its bones, because the animal was so heavy. However, a flexible tail could change that by acting as a shock damper during running, "allowing it to run faster without breaking its bones," van Bijlert said.
This is a great zoom talk by Dr. Thomas Holtz about the role played by sub-adult tyrannosaurids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwxaEsLcU_w
Holtz looks at the hypothesis that juveniles and sub-adults filled the niches that medium-size predators occupied in ecosystems with no tyrannosaurids. If so they'd have needed to have been fast enough to catch smaller prey.
> “For instance, the T. rex population was likely about 20,000 at any one time, but the 95% confidence range — the range of numbers in which there's a 95% chance the true number falls — is 1,300 to 328,000. In other words, when the T. rex total is calculated (which includes population density, population size at any one time, generation time and total number of generations), the number of T. rex individuals that ever lived could be anywhere from 140 million to 42 billion, the researchers said.”
> — https://www.livescience.com/number-of-tyrannosaurus-rex-on-e...
The estimated maximum population of living adult Tyrannosaurs at any one time, on the other hand, is ~20,000, with a 95% confidence interval from 1,300 to 328,000, according to that article.
[1] https://www.livescience.com/number-of-tyrannosaurus-rex-on-e...
[1] https://www.livescience.com/number-of-tyrannosaurus-rex-on-e...