From CTV :
In all its ‘90s CGI glory, the first “Jurassic Park” movie depicted a field of roaming sauropods – those giraffe-looking dinosaurs – with the film’s iconic theme song ascending.
The cinematic moment captured the imagination of viewers, but new evidence suggests that Steven Spielberg’s dino-flick got one detail wrong – namely, the sauropods’ feet.
In a digital reconstruction study, led by scientists from University of Queensland and Monash University, 3D modelling was used to test the function of foot bones of different sauropods. Their research was fuelled by a simple question: How would the dinosaurs’ feet be capable of supporting their weight?
The findings suggest that the hind feet of the sauropod had a soft tissue pad beneath the heel, cushioning the foot to absorb their immense weight. This, researchers say, differs from conceptions that sauropods had feet similar to modern-day elephants.
From Monash University website:
Sauropods were the largest terrestrial animals that roamed the Earth for more than 100 million years.
They were first thought to have been semi-aquatic with water buoyancy supporting their massive weight, a theory disproved by the discovery of sauropod tracks in terrestrial deposits in the mid-twentieth century.
Monash University’s Dr Olga Panagiotopoulou said it had also been thought sauropods had feet similar to a modern-day elephant.
“Popular culture – think Jurassic Park or Walking with Dinosaurs – often depicts these behemoths with almost-cylindrical, thick, elephant-like feet,” Dr Panagiotopoulou said.
“But when it comes to their skeletal structure, elephants are actually ‘tip-toed’ on all four feet, whereas sauropods have different foot configurations in their front and back feet.
“Sauropod’s front feet are more columnar-like, while they present more ‘wedge high heels’ at the back supported by a large soft tissue pad.”