In one of the most iconic scenes in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park, several adventurers try to escape a Tyrannosaurus rex in a jeep speeding up to 32 miles per hour, and still they have to go faster. Modern computer technology, however, allows scientists to create virtual copies of extinct animals, and recent research calculating the forces acting on a T. rex's limb bones suggests a top speed of around 11 meters per second (25 miles per hour). Anything faster would have broken this bipedal dinosaur's legs.
Scientists estimate that the average lifespan of a T. rex was only 20-30 years, but some of the larger Sauropods may have lived 100 years or more.
Charles R. Knight (1874-1953) was an American artist best known for his influential paintings of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Knight's most famous work depicts the classic confrontation between the horned dinosaur Triceratops and its deadly adversary Tyrannosaurus rex.
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