T. rex could turn quickly
The tyrannosaur created kind was created vegetarian on Day 6, but Tyranosaurs were clearly predators by the time of the Flood, about 1,600 years later. The most infamous variety of this kind was T. rex, which was about 12 m (40 ft) long, 4 m (13 ft) tall at the hips, and weighed 6 tonnes (13,000 pounds). But could such a huge creature run and catch prey, or was it reduced to scavenging?
A team led by biomedical engineering expert Eric Snively has shown that T. rex was much more agile than previously thought. First, for its size, it wasn’t that long head-to-tail. Think of a figure skater who pulls her arms inwards to spin faster. This works because her more compact posture has lower rotational inertia (resistance to turning). Second, it had larger ilia (singular ilium), the upper hip bones. This means that larger and stronger muscles could be attached, enabling greater torque (turning force).
This combination of lower rotational inertia and higher torque means that it could have turned quickly. Dr Snively said: “No matter what their body size, tyrannosaurs always seemed able to turn their bodies twice as quickly as other blade-toothed carnivorous dinosaurs of the same mass.”
- Paul, G.S., The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, 2nd Edn, pp.116–117, Princeton University Press, 2016.
- Snively, E. and 11 others, Lower rotational inertia and larger leg muscles indicate more rapid turns in tyrannosaurids than in other large theropods, Peer J Preprints, 4 July 2018| doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.27021.
- Geggel, L., T. rex turned like a ballerina from a slow-motion nightmare, livescience.com, 6 November 2018.
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