Zoom in / 3D paleostructures of sauropods show a soft tissue pad under the “heel” of the hind foot that cushioned the foot to absorb the animal’s enormous weight.
Andreas Jannell
Makes people think about dinosaurs, they would probably name it Tyrannosaurus Rex , which is the carnivorous villain Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Movie franchises. But equally well-known dinosaur clades are herbivorous sauropods, which include Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus , Argentina and Brontosaurus. According to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances, Australian paleontologists have digitally reconstructed these plant-eating giants to gain insight into how their feet supported their enormous weight.
“We have finally confirmed a long-suspected idea by providing the first biomechanical evidence that soft tissue pads — especially in their hind feet” – will reduce exercise stress and bone stress,” said co-author Andreas Jannel, who worked on the project while completing his doctoral research at the University of Queensland. “It’s exciting to imagine these gigantic creatures being able to support their own weight on land.”
Sauropods (clade name: sauropoda pods), or “lizard feet”) have bodies with long necks and long tails, making them the longest animals on Earth. They have thick and powerful hind legs, five-toed club-like feet, and more slender forearms. Complete sauropod fossils are hard to find, and even most complete sauropod fossils still lack heads, tail tips and limbs. Still, scientists have managed to learn a lot about them, and digital reconstructions are proving to be a valuable new tool for advancing our knowledge even further.
For example, in 2013, researchers made a were digitally reconstructed to test their motor abilities. Previous assessments of the probable speed of sauropods were based largely on studies of bone histology and evidence from trace fossils, especially footprints. The digital skeleton takes into account the position (and layering) of muscles and joints when calculating an animal’s gait and speed. The team concluded that Argentinosaurus had a top speed of only about 5 mph (2 m/s ) because of its size and weight.
Sauropods are thought to walk like elephants, but a new way to analyze footprints Show that their gait is most similar to that of hippos.
Many paleontologists The gait of sauropods is thought to be similar to that of elephants. But a study by British scientists published earlier this year challenged that assumption, arguing that sauropods’ frames were too wide to balance with such a gait. Their conclusions are based on a new method of footprint analysis that looks at trajectory changes from one step to another to determine the timing of each footprint. They compared the footprints of sauropods with those of various modern animals.
The gait of the sauropods did not match either of them, although the gait of the hippo – another with wide legs Heavy Animals – Closest. As for the elephant, its gait is actually the opposite of that of sauropods. Elephants move laterally, but if sauropods walked that way, the side-to-side sway would be too great for stable movement. Instead, sauropods probably walked with a diagonal gait, with the front foot touching the ground before the other rear foot. This way, for stability, dinosaurs always had at least one foot on the ground on each side.
