Jurassic World? Scientists ‘resurrect’ giant prehistoric LIZARD as walking ROBOT – VIDEO

The Multidiscipline team led by John Nyakatur of Humboldt University was tasked with creating a life model of the prehistoric lizard from the little data they had. The team later published a paper on reverse-engineering of the stem Orabates Pabsti fossil in the Nature Journal.  The task was made possible by having the extinct species’ completely preserved skeleton and fossils of its tracks. 

Initially, scientists scanned the skeleton in there dimensions to create a 3D digital model that could be animated before choosing to create a real-life robotic model called OroBot.

The way the creature walked is dependant on a variety of factors including its amount of cartilage and the angle at which it can bend its spine.

The conclusions that could be drawn from the 3D digital model were limited as it could not account for gravitation and other physical constraints.

Through creating and watching Orobot walk in a straight line the researches were able to validate their predictions and remove previous hypotheses.

The researches now believe that the prehistoric lizard “exhibited more advanced locomotion than has previously been assumed for earlier tetrapods.”

Despite the progress made through creating a physical model of the creature, the exact parameters, like the amount of cartilage or power efficiency the lizard could have used are unknown.

The scientist then created a website where the user is able to toy with these parameters to look at what would change if the creatures balance, power efficiency and precision were different than initially expected.

John Hutchinson a biomechanist for the Royal Veterinary College explained the information that could be gained from the exercise.

He said: “You can allow bones to collide freely or just gently touch.

“You can dial it up to a level of four and allow no collisions which is basically saying there must be a substantial space between the joints.”

The research conducted opens up doors for scientists to gain more insight into how quickly early land species adjusted to the environment.

If the experiments conducted prove beneficial it may pave the way for similarly “resurrecting” other long-extinct animals.

source: express.co.uk