Angry treadmill-running alligators help scientists figure out the dinosaurs

Vertebrate physiologist Tomasz Owerkowicz, who works at California State University in San Bernardino, is studying how dinosaurs breathed. To do this, he is enlisting the help of some more modern assistants, but they're not exactly happy with the task they're being assigned.

Owerkowicz is using American alligators, which have a 'piston-pump' action in their diaphragm that they share with their distant dinosaur cousins, and to see this in action, he puts them on a treadmill.

Unfortunately, just putting the alligators on the treadmill doesn't guarantee that they'll walk or run along. In fact, they usually just lay there until they slide off the end, so Owerkowicz needs to give them a little tap on the base of their tail to get them moving — something that unfortunately gets the two to three foot-long alligators a bit ornery.

“It’s like making your kid go outside and play when all she wants to do is lie on the sofa,” said Owerkowicz, according to Wired.com.

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