Do birds walk like dinosaurs?

Only birds, humans and a handful of mammals walk on two hind legs. Evolution, it seems, favours four legs!

But should we add dinosaurs to the list of locomotory outliers? or did they evolve a third way of walking?

A major research study at LJMU is seeking to establish exactly how dinosaurs walked and how that changed as they evolved into modern-day birds.

Biologist Peter Falkingham, who was the first scientist to reconstruct the whole foot motion of a dinosaur, is leading the five-year study: “We’ve set out to explore the locomotor changes that took place as birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs.

“Did this once-dominant reptile cede its agility and walking prowess in order to fly?

 “Are evolutionary changes in limb motions recorded in the fossil footprint record? If so, do they show a gradual change from tail-driven theropods to knee-driven birds, or do limb motions change abruptly with the appearance of specific traits?”

The study - ‘Mud to muscles’ – is a £2.1m Horizon Europe project and has enabled Professor Falkingham to recruit a new team of researchers to the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, comprising: postdocs Dr Andreas Jannel and Dr Ben Griffin, PhD student Rebecca Lowes and technician Tash Prescott.

"A dinosaur skeleton will not tell us how an animal moved" - Professor Peter Falkingham, School of Biological and Environmental Sciences

They have brought in a host of hi-tech equipment including a £400K CT scanner, high-end cameras, 3D printers and are sourcing biplanar X-ray equipment.

Using fossil footprints as a start point, the team are combining 3D imaging, physical experimentation and computer simulation to bridge the gap between footprints and known physiological traits of the animals.

Limb motions of long-extinct dinosaurs will be reconstructed using fossil tracks from across the world, then supercomputer simulations modelling every grain of a sediment responding to the indenting foot will be used to test the reconstructed motions.

“Our biomechanical simulations will shed light not only on what the feet of dinosaurs were doing, but on how the whole limbs and even bodies of these enigmatic animals once moved,” added Peter.

“From the bones we cannot tell exactly how an animal moved. We do not have the rest of its body – so footprints can give us really good clues.”

Peter’s team’s roles are:

Rebecca Lowes - PhD student – exploring foot posture in birds and dinosaurs

Tash Prescott – Technician – is running the CT scanner, carrying out physical experiments, including pushing feet into mud

Dr Andreas Jannel - Post-doctoral fellow – is modelling the musculoskeletal system of dinosaurs making footprints

Dr Ben Griffin - Post-doctoral fellow - is simulating the foot-substrate interaction (computing how mud moves around the foot).

MAIN IMAGE: Peter, Ben, Tash, Andreas and Rebecca in the biology laboratories.

ends