If Jurassic Park scared you as a little kid and made you fear unethical scientists would bring the T. rex back to life (was it just me?), scientists have some good news. A new study uncovered that the T. rex didn't really run fast [1] and was an even bigger slowpoke than we thought.
A research team at the University of Manchester School of Earth and Environmental Sciences published its new findings on the T. rex in the journal PeerJ on July 18. The team, led by William Sellers, conducted a series of "biomechincal techniques" to see how a T. rex would actually run. They used multi body dynamic analysis, skeletal stress, and machine-learning to simulate a T. rex running. You can see a video of what it looked like ahead.
VIDEO: Watch T. rex walk (not run) in simulation done by @wisellers [2], @UoMSEES [3] & @N8HPC [4]. The groundbreaking research says #Trex [5] couldn't run. pic.twitter.com/52mMQI4YDR [6]
— Manchester Uni News (@UoMNews) July 18, 2017 [7]
As you can see, the T. rex wasn't that fast (and its notoriously stubby arms were pretty useless). The research team concluded that the T. rex could only run 12 miles per hour. If the dinosaur ran any faster, its bones would break due to its weight. This, of course, means the T. rex probably couldn't have chased down Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park as he tried to get away in a Jeep Wrangler.
The team believes its findings show that the T. rex hunted its food differently [9] than previously thought, either by attacking "large, slow herbivores" or hiding and then attacking smaller animals, Sellers told Motherboard. Thanks to this new information, we'll never look at dinosaurs in the same way again.