Scientists try to discover how T.rex walked

[Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-strap-fake-dinosaur-tail-on-chickens-to-discover-how-trex-walked-video-9117384.html
Scientists are now using chickens and fake tails to try to discover how Tyrannosaurus rex really walked. Thoughts?

[tyrantqueen]

Very interesting. I'm not sure if it's an accurate simulation, but it's a novel approach nonetheless.

[wings]

This study is almost the same as the one that Carrano and Biewener did a few years back.

Carrano MT, Biewener AA (1999) Experimental alteration of limb posture in the chicken (Gallus gallus) and its bearing on the use of birds as analogs for dinosaur locomotion. Journal of Morphology 240: 237–249.

You can find the abstract here (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10367398)

The only real different is one tied the weigh to the end of the artificial tail (Carrano and Biewener) while the current study from PLOS http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088458 the weigh was tied to the base of the tail. It is difficult to say which of these experiments is more accurate since the true tail mass is unknown in both studies.