[Rockhounds] Never mind outrunning a T. rex — you could probably outwalk it

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Could you run faster than a *T. rex*
<https://www.livescience.com/23868-tyrannosaurus-rex-facts.html>? According
to new research, you might be able to outpace one by walking.

In the movie "Jurassic Park" (Warner Bros, 1993), a carful of terrified
people famously tries to escape a loping *T. rex, *but science quickly
threw shade at the movie beast and demonstrated that the king of
tyrannosaurs wouldn't have been fast enough to run down a jeep. Now,
researchers have slowed down the big *dinosaur*
<https://www.livescience.com/3945-history-dinosaurs.html> even more.

New simulations based on tail movement showed that *T. rex* wasn't even a
quick walker. In fact, its preferred walking speed clocked in at just under
3 mph (5 km/h), about half the speed of earlier estimates. To put that into
perspective, that's about the average walking speed for a human, according
to the *British Heart Foundation*
<https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events/training-zone/walking-training-zone/walking-faqs>
.

But how fast could such a big animal move? Previously, researchers answered
that question by looking at *T. rex*'s mass and hip height, sometimes
incorporating stride length from preserved trackways. Those estimates
placed a *T. rex*'s walking speed roughly between 4.5 and 6.7 mph (7.2 and
10.8 km/h), about as fast as a mediocre human runner.

For the new investigation, rather than focusing on *T. rex*'s legs,
scientists instead explored the role played by the vertical movement of the
tyrannosaur's tail, said Pasha van Bijlert, a master's candidate studying
paleo-biomechanics at the Free University of Amsterdam, and the lead author
of the new study on *T. rex* walking speed.

https://www.livescience.com/t-rex-slow-walker-tail.html