Why do tyrannosaurs have such short front legs?
Miscellaneous / / April 22, 2022
According to a new theory, it's all about the cruelty of these dinosaurs.
Tyrannosaurs are known for their disproportionately short front legs. Although the 14-meter Tyrannosaurus rex had a skull about 1.5 meters long, its front legs were about 90 cm long. It's like a person with a height of 180 cm had arms 13 cm long. Scientists have been arguing for a long time what this feature is connected with, and now appeared new interesting theory.
UC Berkeley paleontologist Kevin Padian decided to approach the issue from a new angle. If his colleagues were speculating on what advantage short legs gave these dinosaurs, he decided to analyze what disadvantages long legs could have, given what we know about tyrannosaurs.
And we know that these predators with a massive head and powerful jaws hunted in groups - and therefore, constantly shared their prey with each other. In such conditions, there is a high risk that neighbors can show with their teeth that someone is trying to cut off too large a piece - and damage (or even bite off) the nearest limb to him. Possible consequences are infection, blood loss, pain shock and even death.
Considering that these animals did not use their forepaws during the hunt, it is not surprising that that in the course of evolution they became shorter, although in earlier tyrannosaurids the forelimbs were longer. Probably for similar reasons, disproportionately short legs were also observed in abelisaurids and carcharodontosaurus, predatory bipedal pangolins that lived in Africa and South America during the Cretaceous.
Padian noted that his hypothesis - like any other - is almost impossible to prove, since the objects of study died out 66 million years ago. But he argues that any other theories do not explain why, over time, the front legs of such dinosaurs became shorter - they can only explain why they could keep them short in further.
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