Long-necked dinosaurs had a gait unlike any living animal

By Christa Lest.

According to a new method for learning an animal's stride pattern from its footprints, giant long-necked dinosaurs walked with a gait that was different from that of any living animal.

Unlike elephants, sauropods had a diagonal gait, with each step of a front leg closely followed by the hind leg on the opposite side.

Jens Lallensack says that this would have allowed the 50-plus-tonne animals to keep their wide frames in balance.

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Everybody assumed that sauropods walked like elephants, but they didn't, and we think that's because they were so much broader.

Lallensack and Peter were of the opinion that previous studies looking at footprints alone weren't telling the full story.

Lallensack says that they developed a new method of footprint analysis that scrutinizes variations in tracks from one stride to the next, giving critical information about footfall timing.

Three dogs, two horses, a camel, an elephant and a red fox were some of the modern four-legged animals that the pair tested their method on.

They analysed sauropod footprints from three sites in Arkansas, where the tracks run in a straight line across distances ranging from 47 to 93 metres.

Read more: The biggest dinosaur ever may have been twice the size we thought

Lallensack says the sauropod tracks didn't match any of the modern animals they analysed. The front foot touches down just before the hind foot on the opposite side, which is somewhat similar to a horse's trot.

The elephants were doing the opposite of the sauropods.

The giants would have been stable if they had at least one foot on the ground on each side. The only animal that has a trotting gait like the sauropods is the Hippopotamus, a heavy animal with widely set legs.

The sauropods were broad because the tracks were closer to each other than modern animals.

It would mean a lot of swaying side to side for them if they had a lateral gait like that of elephants. This would be a huge problem.

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