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How Fast Could Dinosaurs Run? A mere fifteen years ago, when I was a child, dinosaurs were often portrayed to me as gigantic, sluggish beings. Due to the sheer magnitude of their bodies, it seemed unlikely to me that dinosaurs could run as fast as a cheetah across the open plains. It is due to sheer size, however, that some scientists argue that they were able to run or gallop at high speeds. The theories that support dinosaurs moving at top speed also present several opposing factors that should be considered. Authors R.T. Bakker and R.M. Alexander have given some imposing arguments to scientists who theorize dinosaurs to be slow, ambling creatures. In “The Teutonic Diplodocus: A Lesson in Gait and Carriage” author R.T. Bakker discusses the journey that brought him to the conclusion that dinosaurs were able to move at great speeds. As a student at Yale University, Bakker studied the bone structure of many dinosaur species. He made several references to traits that were shared between Triceratops and modern Rhinos aurous. The olecranon, or commonly referred to as the funny bone, allows movement in the elbow. The Rhino and the Triceratops both have very large olecranon in the fore limbs, which suggest flexibility.