Triceratops walking

[haloman]

As a kid interesed in paleontology I was reading a book by Peter Dodson called The Horned Dinousours and it said that with all the evidence to help they still don't know. I was thinking about it and it occured to me they had to walk with their legs straight up it would be easier to run. What do you think?

[InfiniteNow]

Hi haloman,

Can you clarify your question? I don't follow...

Still don't know what despite the evidence?
Walk with their legs straight up? Like they're laying on their back?

Let me know. I was a kid interested in paleontology too. Well, actually, more interested in the big veggiesaurs and teradactyls and the like, but I want to understand what you are asking because it could be a really fun dialogue.


Cheers.

[haloman]

Wow. Sorry should of reread that I completly forgot the question, the question is how did triceratops walk?
I don't have the book at the time so I can't remember the evidence.
Paleontologists think they either walked with their legs arched in a upside down U or like a dog with the legs straight.
They call the teradactyls trodons now.
Really sorry about the question.

[InfiniteNow]

Walking for most animals is generally considered a series of controlled falls. However, there are lots of interesting theories out there (and remember, some will be more accurate than others, because not too many of us have seen a triceratops walking, but we can speculate based on the evidence at hand).


Here's a pretty cool article on dinosaur locomotion that may answer some questions and generate more. Cheers.

One small section is quoted below, but I advise reading the whole thing (which launches as a .pdf).
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q...ents/JRH16.pdf

Larger dinosaurs were more limited in their scope of potential locomotor activities. It is unlikely that huge dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and particularly the sauropod dinosaurs could run quickly, if they could run at all. Although there are some striking anatomical similarities between some larger dinosaurs and fairly large, fast-running living animals, biomechanics tells us that very large animals must move relatively slower than their smaller relatives. This is because of ‘scaling’: the changes of biological properties with body mass. The forces that an animal’s muscles can generate to support the body during a given activity increase about 2/3 as fast as body weight increases. The reason for this scaling is that muscle force is dependent on cross-sectional area, which scales as a linear dimension squared. Body weight is a linear dimension cubed; thus area scales as mass2/3. Thus, very large animals are relatively less able to generate the forces needed to support their own weight during movement. They must slow downto avoid falling, straining muscles, or breaking bones and tendons. Eventually, they become unable to use the broad range of locomotor activities that smaller animals can do – elephants do not gallop like racehorses or leap like gazelles.