Long-tailed dinosaurs may have cracked their tails like whips
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029296
New Scientist : Certain sauropod dinosaurs that had very long, tapering tails may have whipped them so fast that the tip made a supersonic cracking noise, according to Nathan Myhrvold, CEO of Intellectual Ventures. To prove his theory, Myhrvold has created a quarter-size replica of an Apatosaurus‘s tail. It weighs 20 kg and is about 3.5 m long, compared with that of a living dinosaur, which would have weighed 1300 kg and been 14 m long. Whip cracking may have been done to attract a mate, but it would have injured the tail over time. Myhrvold says that such injury is evidenced by the fact that about half of the long sauropod tails that have been found have damaged vertebrae.
