Dinosaur handprint reveals surprises

Steven Spielberg got it wrong.

In his 1997 film Jurassic Park, the director showed Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor and other carnivorous dinosaurs walking around with their forearms hanging down like a monkey’s and their palms more or less parallel to the ground — a posture derisively referred to by paleontologists as the “bunny position.”

A growing body of evidence, however, has suggested that the creatures were physically unable to assume this position because their wrist bones would not turn in this fashion.

Now, the first unequivocal handprint of a 198 million-year-old crouching carnivore confirms this speculation, providing clear evidence that the front limb struck the ground on its side, like a karate chop, and thus would have been of little use for walking.

The rare handprint from the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site in Utah indicates that even very early dinosaurs had forelimbs very similar to those of birds,.

“What this seems to imply is that, even from fairly early in their history, dinosaurs were entirely bipedal and weren’t using their forearms to support themselves in any way,” said paleontologist Tom Holtz.

“Because of that, the hands could specialize as weapons, to grab on to a struggling animal or to fight with other dinosaurs,” he said.