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randomdinos — Some non-avian dinosaur speed estimates
#albertosaurus #apatosaurus #carnotaurus #ceratosaurus #coelophysis #deinonychus #dilophosaurus #dinosaur #diplodocus #gallimimus #giganotosaurus #herrerasaurus #homalocephale #hypsilophodon #muttaburrasaurus #parasaurolophus #protoceratops #stegosaurus #styracosaurus #triceratops #tyrannosaurus #argentinosaurus #parksosaurus #dinosaurspeed
Published: 2018-11-14 20:17:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 35835; Favourites: 210; Downloads: 335
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This is gonna be a long one. Since at least the Dinosaur Renaissance (and likely before, as evidenced by the existance of papers dating to the 70s), the maximum speed of non-avian dinosaurs is a curious topic for most people. It has been theorized that dinosaurs like stegosaurs could run as fast as wild horses (47 km/h; Coombs 1978), and the same for Giganotosaurus and Tyrannosaurus in separate occasions, but biomechanical studies eventually concluded that these were not possible. On the other hand, exceptionally slow speeds have also been suggested, like Tyrannosaurus around 20 km/h; slower than elephants, which are far less adapted for high speeds than the tyrannosaurid skeleton.Here is a compilation of estimates from various methods on various dinosaur clades; unfortunately the vast majority of estimates are made on theropods, leaving other clades behind. In general, it seems that dinosaurs for the most part would've been similarly fast as mammals of similar size; some exceptions are species or breeds with extremely well developed running specializations, such as racehorses and cheetahs. Most of the estimates made by the multispecies papers could not fit into the chart, as they tend to cluster in the same range; as a result, I included many more below. Surely other papers that I'm not aware of also have plausible estimates (one thing to keep in mind is that even within the same estimation method, unknown masses and incomplete limbs allow for leeway in the total speed).
The methods used here are a combination of two papers on biomechanics from vastly different times (Thulborn, 1982 and Hutchinson, 2002), and a formula derived from the one in the Eofauna team's book (Records y curiosidades de los dinosaurios terópodos y otros dinosauromorfos, 2016; still no English version AFAIK). A third paper, Sellers et al. 2007, came to some overlapping conclusions with the latter, as well as presenting estimates for a couple of modern cursorial birds. Another study (Sellers et al, 2013) looks at the mechanical competence of a (sadly very inaccurate, but it's the only one available) skeletal mount of Argentinosaurus, and a 3d model of Diplodocus carnegii was used by Heinrich Mallison to estimate maximum speed.
Estimates using Thulborn (1982):
Euoplocephalus: 6.7-9.7 km/h
Sauropelta and Panoplosaurus: 7.8-11.3 km/h
Ammosaurus: 10.8 km/h
Diplodocus: 11.5 km/h
Anchisaurus: 14.6 km/h
Efraasia: 16.2 km/h
Abrictosaurus: 14-19 km/h
Podokesaurus: 15-20 km/h
Brachiosaurus: 17.6 km/h
Compsognathus: 19-26 km/h
Fabrosaurus: 21-27 km/h
Pisanosaurus: 22-29 km/h
Nanosaurus: 24-32 km/h
Leptoceratops: 28.2 km/h
Psittacosaurus: 25-33 km/h
Ornitholestes: 26-34 km/h
Stegoceras: 26-32 km/h
Dryosaurus: 33-43 km/h
Struthiomimus: 38-50 km/h
Dromiceiomimus: 38-51 km/h
Gallimimus: 42-56 km/h
Estimates using Larramendi (2016, modified):
Sanjuansaurus: 28.1 km/h
Leshansaurus: 29.3 km/h
Acrocanthosaurus: 30.7 km/h
Tethyshadros: 30.8 km/h
---Homo sapiens: 31 km/h
Australovenator: 31.4 km/h
Neovenator: 32.1 km/h
Afrovenator: 32.3 km/h
Allosaurus maximus and Deinonychus antirrhopus: 32.7 km/h
Suchomimus: 33.2 km/h
Yutyrannus: 33.4 km/h
Daspletosaurus torosus: 35.5 km/h
Chilantaisaurus: 35.6 km/h
Sinraptor hepingensis: 36.2 km/h
Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus: 37 km/h
Austroraptor: 37.8 km/h
Deinocheirus: 38.2 km/h
Estimates in Sellers et al (2007):
---Homo sapiens: 28.4 km/h
Tyrannosaurus: 28.8 km/h
Allosaurus fragilis: 33.8 km/h
Dilophosaurus: 37.8 km/h
Velociraptor: 38.9 km/h
---Dromaius novaehollandiae: 47.9 km/h
---Struthio: 55.4 km/h
References (+details on the methods):
-Thulborn, R.A. (1982). ''Speeds and gaits of dinosaurs.''
-Hutchinson J.R, Garcia M. Tyrannosaurus was not a fast runner. Nature. 2002;415:1018–1021. doi:10.1038/4151018a
-Sellers WI, Manning PL. 2007. Estimating dinosaur maximum running speeds using evolutionary robotics . Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 274:2711-2716
-dinosaurpalaeo.wordpress.com/2…
-Sellers, W. I.; Margetts, L.; Coria, R. A. B.; Manning, P. L. (2013). Carrier, David, ed. "March of the Titans: The Locomotor Capabilities of Sauropod Dinosaurs" . PLoS ONE. 8 (10): e78733.
-Larramendi, A. & Molina, R. (2016). ''Records y curiosidades de los dinosaurios terópodos y otros dinosauromorfos.''
Skeletal reconstructions used:
Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Styracosaurus, Coelophysis, Protoceratops, Hypsilophodon, Ceratosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Herrerasaurus, Parksosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Carnotaurus, Gallimimus, Tyrannosaurus by ScottHartman
Patagotitan, Tyrannosaurus, Albertosaurus by me
Heterodontosaurus, Homalocephale by GetAwayTrike
Giganotosaurus by Franoys
Orthomerus by Batavotyrannus
Deinonychus by bricksmashtv
Muttaburrasaurus by PLASTOSPLEEN
Human silhouette from www.onlygfx.com/20-woman-silho…
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Comments: 83
A little off topic here, but since you had included it here, is Pisanosaurus now considered a true dinosaur or an indeterminate dinosauriform ?
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Indeterminate dinosauriform, possibly a silesaurid.
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*checks T. rex speed*
...34.6 km/h (as per Hutchinson and Garcia, 2002).
Oh, phew, good! It's not that 12 mph estimate that Sellers et al. (2017) supposedly estimated. I say "supposedly" because if you look at their paper their estimate is actually 7.7 m/s (which is ~17.2 mph, not 12).
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Indeed, so many people have weirdly miscited Sellers 2017....
Ironically, the title of the Hutchinson & Garcia study is "Tyrannosaurus was not a fast runner"... I wonder if the authors themselves are faster than that.
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Yeah, Tyrannosaurus may not have been the super fast speed demon postulated back in the '80s, but many of us humans could still be given a run (no pun intended) for our money by an adult Tyrannosaurus. Wouldn't be prepared to call it "slow" just yet.
Edit: you said they estimate it at 34.6 km/h? I'm trying to find where they state this. They say Tyrannosaurus was limited at max to 11 m/s top speed, which is 39.6 km/h.
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Isn't a range of 18-25 mph given? Or am I citing the wrong paper?
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I don't know. I can't tell if I'm misconstruing what it says there or not. 34.6 km/h isn't unreasonable IMO, though.
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Great work, this is gonna be so useful!
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Is Dromiceiomimus still a valid genus?
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It is still debated whether it is a valid genus or not; the most recent publication on this matter seems to support it:
www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/a…
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Dromiceiomimus in a nutshell:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHD1qQ…
Anyways, nice!
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Lol, seems like giganotosaurus's only remaining advantage over t.rex- speed- is now gone too.
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If I remember right, the idea of the speed advantage comes from people misciting the ''31 mph Giganotosaurus'' study as if it used the same methods as modern studies on T.rex. When it comes to leg proportions, it's rather well known that tyrannosaurs are more cursorial than allosauroids.
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Well it was just one of those over the top things that we just accepted, but deep down in our hearts never really believed, just like 60 m and 150 t amphicoelias, or that t.rex looked just like a bird.
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You do realize that super-fast T. rex is a juvenile while the only Giga speed estimate here is an adult? I doubt either species was capable of significantly exceeding 30kmh as adults.
And because you seem to be someone who thinks T. rex's bite force will make a huge difference: Every giant predatory theropod can cause enough damage to quickly kill ever other giant predatory theropod. This is more a case of "whoever bites first wins".
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Note that with the modified Larramendi method (the same one used for the Giganotosaurus in the chart), the 7.5 t T.rex holotype is 37 km/h
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Fair enough, but not a very big difference there.
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I want to shid youre pantd
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Your lack of 180 cm femur Shantungosaurus angers me
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I will add Diplodocus sized bipeds when their speeds start making sense
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You offend me and my giant bipedal Ornithischian speeds, I will now tumblr shame you
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Deinonychus is a bit faster than I expected....
On another note, the speed of living animals should really be recorded more thoroughly, because a lot of them seem to be overestimates (for example, the official speed estimate for lions, which is 80kmh, makes zero sense, given that lions can't outrun animals that actually do move that quickly)
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There was a 2018 paper that measured speed in lions, zebras, impalas, and cheetahs found that the max (albeit rarely approached) speed for the lions measured was supposedly 20.6 m/s (74.16 km/h).
Although this was a rather recent study, that doesn't sound right to me at all. Not only are lions still not the most cursorial of animals, but the absolute max speed found for the cheetahs in that same study was estimated to be just 3.2 m/s faster than that of the lions (i.e. it was 23.8 m/s). The idea that a lion even comes anywhere close to the speed of a cheetah, arguably the most hyper-specialized terrestrial animal for speed we know of, seems highly suspect.
I agree with your last statement.
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Yeah the idea any other carnivoran moves anywhere nearly as fast as a cheetah seems to be nonsense.
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Admittedly in Larramendi's formula it is slower (32.7 km/h)
And very right. 40 kmh elephants and 50 kmh rhinos/hippos are also heavily overestimated (scientific measurements rarely get more than half of that, I've seen)
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This actually has implications for the argument that “extant land predators are faster and thus “better evolved” than extinct ones” (and yes, this is a paleontological argument that pops up every now and then), because if extant land predators aren’t as fast as often claimed, it really means that the gap might not exist to start with.
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It doesn´t exist really. We have some groups that do have super fast members (Cheetahs, gazelles etc.) but yeah that´s another way of solving a problem not a better one. And rhino sized dinosaurs are often faster than rhino sized mammals and elephant sized dinosaurs often faster than elephants so rip that.
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