14 Oct 2021

Could dinosaurs wag their tales?

From Nights, 10:46 pm on 14 October 2021

Computer simulations of dinosaurs has yielded an accidental discovery ... their tails wagged when they walked. Historically it has been accepted that the giant creatures' tails were a counterbalance, helping to keep them steady. Studying locomotion in fossils has always been tricky .. but a research team at the Royal Veterinary College in London has found dinosaurs' tails actually moved and helped them to walk efficiently. The aim of the study was to find out how they walked and ran and how high they could jump. Dr Peter Bishop, who is currently a research fellow at Harvard University in the US - tells Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan high tech simulations revealed their tails could actually swing up and down.