Some dinosaurs may have had supersonic weapons

Scientists hypothesize that a species of dinosaur may have used its tail like a bullwhip weapon, so powerful that its loud crack broke the sound barrier. And now a physical model has been created to test this very hypothesis, reports New Scientist.

“They were the first living things to have at least part of themselves exceed the sound barrier,” said Nathan Myhrvold, computer scientist, dinosaur enthusiast, and CEO of Intellectual Ventures.

Sauropods were large plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks and tails. The model in this instance is that of an Apatosaurus—think Littlefoot from The Land Before Time—a genus of sauropods. Apatosaurus had long tails that tapered to a thin whiplike end.

In 1989, McNeill Alexander from the University of Leeds, a zoologist that focused on dinosaur locomotion, hypothesized that male Apatosaurus dinosaurs may have cracked their tails like whips to attract females.

Myhrvold, then chief strategist and chief technology officer of Microsoft Corp., read about Alexander’s hypothesis and was intrigued. “I thought we should find that out. It was such a cool idea,” he told Live Science.

Myhrvold ended up creating a computer model of an Apatosaurus tail in 1997 which predicted that moving the tail would produce a wave that accelerated down its length, reaching supersonic speeds and snapping like a bullwhip. He co-wrote a study describing the model with paleontologist Philip Currie, where they hypothesized that Apatosaurus may have whipped their tails for defense, courtship, communication or rivalry. — Bea Montenegro/TJD, GMA News