Emus A Model For Dinosaurs?

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/10/19/walklikedino_din.html?category=animals&guid=20061019093000
Emus Offer Clues to How Dinos Walked

Oct. 19, 2006  The mysterious moves of two-footed Jurassic dinosaurs 
traveling along a long-lost beach have been brought to life with emus.

Unlike computer models that have been developed to simulate the gait, and 
therefore the possible trackways of specific dinosaurs, live emus allow 
for direct comparisons of complex tracks to specific behaviors, say 
researchers looking at the thousands of tracks left behind 165 million 
years ago by dinosaurs at Red Gulch in northern Wyoming.

Among the surprises theyve found is that tracks once interpreted as steady 
walking may actually be created by the animals stopping at mid-stride.

Another enigmatic type of trackway that now makes sense is where the dinos 
appear to have crossed one leg over the other. The motion is a seemingly 
weird thing to do, until you watch an emu making the same sort of track, 
explains Brent Breithaupt, director and curator of the University of 
Wyomings Geological Museum.

Emus, it turns out, have legs that are close together  like many dinos 
and tend to look around a lot as they walk, Breithaupt explains. This 
scanning behavior causes emus to often cross the left foot over the right 
leg and the right foot over the left, making the same confusing pattern 
seen in the dinosaur trackways.

"Sure enough there are wonderful comparisons," said Breithaupt. "Emus are 
our biological Rosetta Stone."
...


see also
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/10/26/news/wyoming/6e5146f3cdcab9da8725721100809d28.txt