Emus always have one foot on the ground when running at an intermediate pace
Image courstesy of Imagebroker / Alamy Stock Photo
Joel Kontinen
How did dinosaurs run? According a new study, they run like emus, which is strange.
“If you want to imagine a dinosaur running, then
perhaps look at emus. They probably shared a similar posture, which makes it
most energy efficient to keep one foot on the ground when running at an
intermediate pace.
Pasha van Bijlert at
Utrecht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues wanted to understand
why birds have a style of running that is so different to humans.
For instance, emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae), which
can sprint at up to 50 kilometres per hour, always have one foot on the ground
when running at intermediate speeds. This was thought to require much more
energy than the “aerial” running style, in which both feet are off the ground
at the same time, which is seen in other bipeds, such as people.
To learn more, the scientists built a computer model
based on an emu and used physics simulations to measure the energy output of
different running styles, while varying the bird’s anatomy.
“These are all changes you can’t really make in a real
bird, but they represent differences between different bird species,” says van
Bijlert. “For example, quails are very crouched and their tendons probably
don’t store a lot of energy. Emus are, comparatively, pretty upright, but their
tendons store a lot of energy.”
But dinosaurs and emus have lots of differences, Emus
are birds, and dinos are not. God created each species in its own way and dinos
can never really run like emus.
Source:
James Woodford 2024 Dinosaurs may have run like emus by keeping one foot on the ground | New Scientist 25 September
Posts
