By Helen BriggsBBC News
18 July 2017
The size and weight of a T. rex
would have prevented it from moving faster than 20km/h (12mph), research
suggests.
University of Manchester
scientists used a new computer simulation to assess the speed of the massive
biped.
Based on T. rex's muscles
alone, the model came up with a maximum speed of 30km/h, but this dropped to
20km/h when skeletal strength was assessed too.
Had it moved from a brisk walk to
a sprint, the dinosaur's legs would have snapped under the weight of its body.
"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,'' said Prof William Sellers.
''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.
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