The jeep in Jurassic Park may not have escaped the jaws of the Tyrannosaurus rex according to a Brisbane researcher who says carnivorous dinosaurs may have run faster than we originally thought.

Dr Peter Bishop studied fossilised footprints of carnivorous dinosaurs from more than 210 million years ago as part of his Griffith University PhD to determine the walking and running styles of theropods, carnivorous dinosaurs such as the Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor.

Carnivorous dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. Credit:Publicity

He measured the footprints at a site in Virginia in the United States and compared them with the same measurements taken from two modern-day examples of bipeds - humans and 11 species of birds.

"We focused on the one measurement called step width - how wide your feet are spaced apart when you are walking," he said.