Re: Tyrannosaurus tail torque

[David Krentz <ddkrentz@charter.net>]

On Nov 18, 2010, at 6:07 PM, Jonas Weselake-George wrote:

> Finally, we tend to imagine these animals moving on treadmills or
> mud-flats. Many types of terrains may have had slopes, unpredictable
> height variations (eg. throw mounds), as well as varied obstacles and
> unpredictable consistency. 
> 
> The strains and challenges for mobility, navigation and recovery in
> such environments, along with unusually extended or compressed leg
> postures may be much greater than we imagine.

  We filmed some backplate in Redwood Forests in Northern CA for our T.rex 
episode on Reign of the Dinosaurs.  Making the assumption that the terrain in 
some T.rex environments may have been the same given the presence on 
Metasequoia and Laurel forests we've been having a heck of a time finding a 
"nice clear path" for the rexes to walk/run, even in the most well-groomed 
forests.  Given the fact that no one was cleaning up millions of years of 
massive deadfall T.rex must have had to do some fancy footwork, as well as 
ducking and crouching while ambulating through the forests at least some of the 
time.   Standing on slopes or even walking on them would require some constant 
shifting of weight and balance.

  D