Dino-slow? Dinosaurs may not have run as fast as we thought

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-06-25 09:01

International

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For decades, palaeontologists have used fossil trackways to estimate the speeds of dinosaurs. But now, UK scientists have tested this idea with guineafowl walking and running over soft mud, and found that the speeds calculated from their footprints did not match their real speeds. The authors say it may be that the soft mud affected how the birds took their strides, but tracks can only be made in soft ground such as mud, so it’s unlikely that real dinosaur trackways would be immune to these effects. They say estimating speed from trackways is currently inaccurate and potentially misleading.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Speed from fossil trackways: calculations not validated by extant birds on compliant substrates

For decades, palaeontologists have used fossil trackways to estimate the speeds of dinosaurs. We made guineafowl walk and run over soft mud, recording them with high-speed video. Then we applied the equations for speed to their trackways, as would be done for fossils. Unfortunately, the speeds calculated did not match the real speeds. It may be that the soft mud affects how birds take strides, biasing the equations. But tracks can only be made in soft substrates, so it’s unlikely that real dinosaur trackways would be immune to these effects. Estimating speed from trackways is currently inaccurate, and potentially misleading

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Journal/
conference: Biology Letters

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Funder: This work was funded by UKRI Frontier Research Grant TRACKEVOL (selected by the ERC for a consolidator award) awarded to P.L.F. Original data were collected with the support of grants awarded to P.L.F. (Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship) and P.L.F. and S.M.G. (NSF EAR-1452119).

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