Scientists Uncovered How Sauropods, Other Dinosaurs Carried Their Enormous Weight

For the first time, scientists have cracked the enduring mystery of how sauropods, such as Brontosaurus and Diplodocus, supported their gigantic bodies on land. The team from the University of Queensland and Monash University used 3D modeling and engineering methods to digitally reconstruct the foot bones of sauropods.

They showed that a soft heel pad was crucial to these dinosaurs to support their immense weight of up to 50 tons. Sauropods appeared to have developed these soft heel pads as part of their evolution and were likely a step for them to become the largest animals that walked on land.

Gigantic Sauropod Dinosaurs

Sauropods are known to be bigger than other species of dinosaurs. According to Daily Excelsior, a sauropod's feet would have shaken the ground as they walked. In fact, one of the most popular sauropod dinosaurs was the giant Brontosaurus which was also called "thunder lizards."

The characteristics of a sauropod dinosaur include long necks and tails, walking on four feet, and pillar-like legs. However, previous studies showed that they did not start out gigantic. Their ancestors from around 230 million years ago were small, two-legged animals that looked like their saurischian cousins, who most likely just weighed about the same as modern ostrich.

But about 210 million years ago, their ancestors started to increase in size and had an estimated body mass of almost one tone. Years passed and the adult sauropods, like Argentinosaurus, Patagotitan and Australotitan, grew up to 50 tons, which was more than 10 times the size of the largest living terrestrial animal on land today.

Footprints found in the Kimberley region in Western Australia showed that the size of sauropod dinosaurs' feet was big enough for most people to bathe in. Researchers use new technology to understand how their feet could have supported their titanic adult body weight.

(Photo : AIZAR RALDES/AFP via Getty Images)
Sauropods, theropods and ankylosaurus footprints from the Cretaceos period are seen at the Toro Toro National Park, where about 3.500 footprints were found turning the place into a new palaeontological attraction, in Bolivia on October 31, 2018.

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Sauropods Had Heel Pads

Dr. Andréas Jannel said that he and his team found that the hind feet of sauropods had a soft tissue pad beneath their heel that cushioned the foot to support their immense weight. Science Daily reported that the findings confirmed a long-suspected idea and provided biochemical evidence of the soft tissue pad in the hind legs of sauropods that played a crucial role in their locomotor.

Sauropods were the largest terrestrial animals that walked on Earth for more than 100 million years. Some theories suggested that sauropods were semi-aquatic and that their water buoyancy supported their weight. However, the discovery disproved these ideas.

Dr. Olga Panagiotopoulou from Monash University said that sauropods were also thought to have feet similar to a modern-day elephant. Although popular culture depicts sauropods to have almost-cylindrical, thick elephant-like feet, sauropod's front feet are more columnar-like with large soft tissue pads.

Associate Professor Steve Salisbury from the University of Queensland noted that elephants and sauropods had different evolutionary origins. Elephants were from an ancient order of mammals called proboscideans, while sauropods have ancestors closely related to birds.

In conclusion, researchers said that their findings should allow answers to different questions about the biomechanics of extinct animals and understand their environmental adaptations and lifestyle.