{"id":3457,"date":"2014-11-08T12:52:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T17:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2014-11-14T23:37:03","modified_gmt":"2014-11-15T04:37:03","slug":"no-sitting-duckbill-how-hadrosaurs-won-the-dino-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/no-sitting-duckbill-how-hadrosaurs-won-the-dino-derby\/","title":{"rendered":"No sitting duck(bill) &#8211; how hadrosaurs won the \u201cdino derby\u201d<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3448\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SPRace1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3448\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3448\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SPRace1.jpg\" alt=\"Analysis of leg bones in hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs) shows that their muscles attached in such as way as to improve endurance, rather than top speed. This slow-and-steady strategy may have helped them outrun predators like T-rex over long distances. (Image credit: Niroot Puttapipat)\" width=\"400\" height=\"288\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SPRace1.jpg 400w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SPRace1-300x216.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3448\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Analysis of leg bones in hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs) shows that their muscles attached in such as way as to improve endurance, rather than top speed. This slow-and-steady strategy may have helped them outrun predators like T-rex over long distances. (Image credit: Niroot Puttapipat)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A new paper indicates that hadrosaurs &#8211; also known as duck-billed dinosaurs &#8211; were built for endurance rather than speed, and that this helped them avoid predators despite their lack of horns or armour.<\/p>\n<p>Computer analysis of leg bones showed that a critical muscle known as the caudofemoralis attached lower on the thigh in hadrosaurs than in T-rexes. The extra leverage provided by this arrangement suggests that while T-rexes were capable of great bursts of speed, hadrosaurs could outrun them over long distances, especially if their herd members kept an eye out for predators.<\/p>\n<p>The situation is analogous to the way modern zebras use herd mentality and endurance to outrun lions, even though the latter can run faster over short distances.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iupress.indiana.edu\/product_info.php?products_id=807281\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in <em>Hadrosaurs (compendium of research papers, published by Indiana University Press)\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>November 5, 2014<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Scott Persons, University of Alberta, Alberta<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new paper indicates that hadrosaurs &#8211; also known as duck-billed dinosaurs &#8211; were built for endurance rather than speed, and that this helped them avoid predators despite their lack of horns or armour. Computer analysis of leg bones showed that a critical muscle known as the caudofemoralis attached lower on the thigh in hadrosaurs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[170,268,917,265],"class_list":["post-3457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-biodiversity","tag-dinosaur","tag-evolution","tag-fossil"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SPRace1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-TL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3458,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions\/3458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}