Working models

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When Palaeontologists want to know how a dinosaur moved, sometimes they will work with other scientists or engineers to make models, and see how they work. The bones and the way they go together tells them a lot about how the muscles could move that part of the body.


For instance, they wanted to know how far some of the dinosaurs with very long necks could move.

Engineers made a working model to show how much movement could be made by such a dinosaur.

They found it could not reach up very high, but it could swing from side to side quite a long way. This changed their minds about what kind of food such dinosaurs could eat - because they would not be able to reach straight up to the tops of trees, as they first thought.


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