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Can a human outrun a Tyrannosaurus rex ?


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I wouldn't like to have put it to the test!

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This dispute will rumble on forever I think. However, something to think about is why the main prey of a T. rex, the hadrosaurs, Edmontosaurus in particular, are estimated to have a top running speed of about 35 MPH. I'm not suggesting that T. rex could match that speed, but may have been capable of short burts from ambush of up to about 25 MPH. So if you're Bolt you could keep in front of a T. rex, but only if T.rex tired before you did, and despite it's weight, with that avian respiratory system I would not be surprised if a short burst of top speed from T. rex lasted longer than ours.

Another factor is age. All these guesses at T. rex top speed are made using data for a fully grown adult. They become fully grown at 18, like us, and so far the oldest known specimen is about 28. This indicates that the majority of any given population of T. rex would comprise of juveniles. These juveniles would need to hunt and eat because the adults would not be looking after them for 18 years, how long is anybodies guess. They began their main growth spurt in their early teens, again just like us. A T. rex at the start of this growth spurt would be a very lithe animal, and probably very fast, almost certainly capable of more than 25 MPH. I suspect that hadrosaurs needed to run so fast not to escape an adult T. rex, but a pack of speedy juveniles, and it would need a pack, as on the verge of their growth spurt a T.rex will be half the mass of an adult Edmontosaurus, and it may take more than one juvenile T. rex to bring down a juvenile Edmontosuarus of their own weight. A juvenile T. rex does not have the huge size of head, and jaws, proportionate to it's body that an adult does, it's more like a giant "raptor".

The need to evade tyranosaurs, of any type at any period, may, I think, have been the evolutionarry impulse that increased the size of hadrosaurs brains by 100% from their beginnings to their extinction. This brain size increase matches an increase in the size of tyranosaur brains.

Edited by Wepwawet
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3 hours ago, acute said:

If cavemen couldn't out-run a T.Rex, we wouldn't be here! :yes:

They didn't have to.

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1 hour ago, Abramelin said:

They didn't have to.

That's obvious, really,

because the big dinosaurs couldn't fit in the caves. ;)

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Since when is 13 miles per hour "slightly exceeding the top speed of a human runner"??? Eliud Kipchoge can keep a 13 miles per hour pace up for a whole marathon! Usain Bolt's top speed is apparently 27.8 miles per hour https://theconversation.com/the-maths-behind-the-fastest-person-on-earth-and-no-its-not-usain-bolt-63732#:~:text=Despite this%2C the fastest human,44.64kph or 27.8mph.

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Apparently I can in my dreams. lol

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Ever play (video game) Dino Crisis? Yes, it's possible. 

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7 hours ago, XenoFish said:

Out run, doubtful. Out maneuver, probably.

The T-rex would not be bothered by twigs, exposed roots  and would catch most of us while we s**t ourselves, lol

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33 minutes ago, Jon the frog said:

The T-rex would not be bothered by twigs, exposed roots  and would catch most of us while we s**t ourselves, lol

I've got plot armor so I'll be fine.

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4 hours ago, XenoFish said:

 

Well, there we have it then.... T-rex clearly has an issue with stable line of sight due to bobbly-head syndrome (possibly brought on by attending too many, uh, T-rex concerts in their youth?). We'll be fine.

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I doubt that the mature T-Rex ever ran. they didn't need to. they had a great sense of smell and would do much as the male lion does if it doesn't have a bunch of lionesses hunting for it. Let something else make the kill or find an injured or dying animal then walk up and take it away. They might not have been fast but there were probably not any other predators that could stand up to it when it was taking what it wanted. When leopards or cheetah make a kill they have to either eat fast or in the case of the leopard get it up into a tree or they will lose it. The adult T-Rex was probably more of a scavenger than a predator.

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I think the bot is broken, this paper came out in 2002. I don't know about you, but I don't consider an 18 year old paper "new research". There have been multiple studies since then that have suggested varying other speeds for T. rex.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11486275_Tyrannosaurus_was_not_a_fast_runner

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21 hours ago, DanL said:

I doubt that the mature T-Rex ever ran. they didn't need to. they had a great sense of smell and would do much as the male lion does if it doesn't have a bunch of lionesses hunting for it. Let something else make the kill or find an injured or dying animal then walk up and take it away. They might not have been fast but there were probably not any other predators that could stand up to it when it was taking what it wanted. When leopards or cheetah make a kill they have to either eat fast or in the case of the leopard get it up into a tree or they will lose it. The adult T-Rex was probably more of a scavenger than a predator.

We know T. rex actively hunted at least some of the time. There is an embedded T. rex tooth surrounded by healed bone in one specimen of a duckbill, indicating it survived an attack. There is also another duckbill specimen with healed T. rex bite marks and even a healed patch of skin. Obligate scavengers are incredibly rare among tetrapods and T. rex certainly wasn't one.

https://www.pnas.org/content/110/31/12560

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Depalma/publication/257047930_Skin_pathology_in_the_Cretaceous_Evidence_for_probable_failed_predation_in_a_dinosaur/links/5c63a3bd299bf1d14cc205cc/Skin-pathology-in-the-Cretaceous-Evidence-for-probable-failed-predation-in-a-dinosaur.pdf

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