Whether or not you believe that elephants can actually run, one fact that’s now beyond debate is that, while moving quickly, pachyderms never have all four feet off the ground at the same time. While conducting a modern-day variant of Eadweard Muybridge’s famous 1878 horse experiments, John Hutchinson also clocked the huge animals at nearly 16 miles an hour (five miles an hour faster than his previous estimates). His findings were accepted for a brief communication in the journal Nature; there’s more information over at Hutchinson’s website, including the article itself (in PDF format).
Apr 8, 2003 | Q