High-speed video footage of leaping lizards supports a 40-year-old hypothesis about how theropod dinosaurs, like the velociraptors of Jurassic Park fame, adjusted the angle of their tails to stay stable when jumping.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, filmed red-headed agama lizards (Agama agama) running down a track and vaulting off an obstacle to reach a shelter on a high platform.
When the obstacle's surface was made slippery, the lizards skidded and jumped at the wrong angle. But by lifting their tails up or down, the lizards could adjust the tilt of their bodies, and thus land successfully.
Using these observations, the researchers made a computer model of Velociraptor mongoliensis and showed that, muscles willing, the dinosaur could have used its tail in a similar way, “maybe even more effectively than the lizard”, says study leader Robert Full, a biomechanic at Berkeley.
The study is published online today in Nature - Read the Nature News story and the original research paper.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment