Walking with dinosaurs: Giant steps of the 40-metre-long Argentinosaurus are simulated using virtual reality

Experts from the University of Manchester digitally reconstructed the steps taken by a huge dinosaur called Argentinosaurus

The prehistoric animals from South America weighed 80 tonnes and had a top speed of five mph

The simulation used artificially intelligent software and processing power the equivalent of 30,000 desktop computers

Giant steps taken by the biggest dinosaur that ever strode the Earth have been reconstructed by scientists.



Argentinosaurus, from South America, was able to walk for the first time in more than 94 million years - virtually, on a computer screen.



Its movements were modelled by experts from the University of Manchester who laser scanned a 40 metre-long skeleton of the 80 tonne beast housed in an Argentine museum.



A reconstructed skeleton of the giant dinosaur Argentinosaurus at the Carmen Funes museum in Plaza Huincul, Argentina. Scientists from the University of Manchester have reconstructed the giant dinosaur's steps to show how it walked

WHERE DID ARGENTINOSAURUS LIVE?

Argentinosaurus is a type of titanosaur sauropod - part of a family of incredibly large dinosaurs. It was first discovered in Argentina, hence its name.

The dinosaur lived on the then-island continent of South America somewhere between 97 and 94 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Epoch.

It is among the largest known dinosaurs. An early reconstruction estimated Argentinosaurus at between 30–40 metres (98–115 ft) in length with a weight of up to 80–100 tonnes.

The simulation used artificially intelligent software and processing power the equivalent of 30,000 desktop computers.



Lead scientist Dr Bill Sellers, from the university's Faculty of Life Sciences, said: 'If you want to work out how dinosaurs walked, the best approach is computer simulation.



'This is the only way of bringing together all the different strands of information we have on this dinosaur, so we can reconstruct how it once moved.'

The simulated footprints of the 40-metre Cretaceous Argentinosaurus dinosaur skeleton

Some sceptics have doubted that such a heavy animal could have walked and suggested that estimates of its weight must be inflated.



Dr Lee Margetts, another member of the Manchester team, said: 'The new study clearly demonstrates the dinosaur was more than capable of strolling across the Cretaceous planes of what is now Patagonia, South America.'



Co-author , Dr Phil Manning, also from the university, said: 'The digitisation of such vast dinosaur skeletons using laser scanners brings Walking with Dinosaurs to life - this is science, not just animation.'

The scientists' study was published in journal Public Library of Science ONE .



Argentinosaurus was a plant-eater that stood as tall as a three-storey building and stretched to 38 metres (125 feet) in length.



When it was alive, the Andes mountains were mere hillocks and arid North Patagonia consisted of steamy jungle and grassland.



Dr Sellers said: 'The important thing is that these animals are not like any animal alive today and so we can't just copy a modern animal.



Dr Bill Sellers, from the University of Manchester said that computer simulation is the best way of working out how dinosaurs walked and a way of collecting different strands of information together. A computer simulation of the dinosaur's joints is pictured

'Our machine learning system works purely from the information we have on the dinosaur and predicts the best possible movement patterns.'

'Agentinosaurus is the biggest animal that ever walked on the surface of the earth and understanding how it did this will tell us a lot about the maximum performance of the vertebrate musculoskeletal system. We need to know more about this to help understand how it functions in ourselves.

