A new study refutes the claim that long-necked dinosaurs could wag their tails too quickly.
A Portuguese study published in the journal Scientific Reports contradicts the claim that diplodocytes can cross their tails at the speed of sound. According to Live Science, that speed turned out not to be much, although it was huge.
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The famous diplodocus belongs to the family of dinosaurs called diplodocides, as well as some species of the same huge dinosaurs with long necks and long powerful tails.
Previous research had shown that these dinosaurs, which lived between 174 and 101 million years ago, could whip their whip-like tails at a speed of about 1225 km/s at the speed of sound. Instead, the actual speed of their tails will be closer to that of a car. A new study has shown that diplodocytes can whip their long curved tails at around 100 km/h, which is impressive.
To understand the true speed of these dinosaurs’ tail wagging, the scientists analyzed the fossils of five different diplodosides and created a digital model of the tail from the measurements they made while examining the dinosaur remains. The resulting tail model was 12 meters long, weighed almost 1500 kg and had 82 vertebrae.
According to study author Simone Conti, only a few specimens of these gigantic dinosaurs have survived, with the tails best preserved.
“After collecting data and adjusting tail sizes, we built a model and tried to replicate the results of another study that showed dinosaurs could whip their tails at the speed of sound,” says Conti.
But the simulated tail crumbled when it was forced to swing back and forth at such high speeds, instead of reaching that speed. Scientists believe the cause lies in the soft tissues that connect each of the vertebrae in the tail, including various muscles, tendons and skin.
“We noticed that whenever the simulation failed, the tail model was not able to simulate the joints and overstretching between the vertebrae. There were limitations to reaching such high speeds, and they couldn’t cope with such a fast movement, and we lost some parts of the tail,” says Conti.
The exact purpose of this whip-like tail in dinosaurs is still unknown, but scientists believe that judging from its shape, it was likely used as a weapon or a means of communication among these ancient animals.
As already written Focus, scientists concluded that mammals were ready to take over the Earth even before the asteroid killed the dinosaurs. And they had every opportunity for that.
Source: Focus
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