Associated Press
Big, two-legged dinosaurs that roamed what is now England some 163 million years ago walked pigeon-toed, but turned their feet slightly outward when they ran, researchers say.
And while they walked at about 4 mph — a brisk pace for a human — they sprinted at about 18 mph, close to previous maximum estimates for such animals, the work suggests.
The research, an analysis of dinosaur tracks in an Oxfordshire quarry, is reported in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature by scientists at Oxford University.
The work adds to the scanty evidence from tracks about the running ability of big two-legged dinosaurs, the scientists said.
The researchers followed the footprints left by one such beast. When walking, the creature pointed its clawed, three-toed feet slightly inward and took strides of about 9 feet, leaving footprints in a fairly wide zig-zag pattern. That pattern differs from previously known tracks, in which feet fall more in a straight line.
When running, the beast’s toes pointed slightly outward and its stride roughly doubled, creating footprints that fell in almost a straight line.
It is not clear whether the walking gait indicated by the footprints was habitual, or used only on soft or unstable ground, researchers said.
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