Godzilla has remarkable staying power . moving-picture show about giant teras were a dime bag a dozen back in the fifties . Yet while Atomic Age classics like " The Giant Claw " or " The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms " never garnered any sequel , Godzilla forged on . The kaiju made his cinematic debut in 1954 .
Since then , he ’s starred in more than 30 films spanning six - and - a - half decennary . His new motion picture , " Godzilla vs. Kong " debuted in theaters and on HBO Max March 31 . The character ’s origin story continue getting re - written : He ’s unremarkably said to be an irradiated wolf of prehistorical origins , but the specific variegate from movie to film . One thing that ’s remained consistent , however , is Godzilla ’s physical toughness . On - filmdom , the nuclear behemoth is practically invincible . But have you ever wonder how — or " if " — a beast with Godzilla ’s attribute would function in real life ? And what variety of animal is Godzilla , anyway ? "
Godzilla as a Dinosaur
Kenneth Carpenter , a turn in paleontologist who was director of Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum when we spoke to him in 2019 , took a pang at that second question in a 1998 essay he write forThe Official Godzilla Compendium . Traditionally , the monster has been identified as a theropod dinosaur . All known carnivorous dinos ( likeT. rex ) are classified as theropods . So are birds .
Now , Godzilla ’s skull looks little and forthright for a theropod . He also tends to be portray with four fingers per hand , and the beast ’s induce multiple row of bony , vertically orient plates running down his back and ass .
Using these feature , Carpenter tentatively assign Godzilla to theceratosauria , a primitive theropod subgroup . Like our radioactive buddy , a few ceratosaurians had backsides that were littered withosteoderms : bony deposits embedded in the pelt . Certain metal money , such as the Taurus - hornedCarnotaurus sastrei , had shortened skulls to kick .
And there was another fundamental feature of speech that help the ceratosaurians stand out . In an email , Carpenter told us that while some theropods had three , two or evenone - fingeredforelimbs , the more primitive varieties — like the ceratosaurians — " have four or more digit " per manus .
Maybe He’s a Croc?
OK , so Godzilla must be a ceratosaurian theropod , ripe ? Not necessarily , Victoria Arbour told us in 2019 . An armoured dinosaur expert , Arbour is the Curator of Paleontology at the Royal British Columbia Museum . In a 2014blog post , Arbour made the face that the King of the Monsters might not be a dinosaur at all . Maybe he ’s beget more in usual with crocodiles .
Crocs , alligatorsand their prehistorical kin form a reptilian clade called the pseudosuchia . As Arbour notes , osteoderms and four - fingered hands are more unremarkably go out in pseudosuchians than they are in theropods . So perhaps Godzilla belong to the former group .
talk of digits , allow ’s look into out Godzilla ’s feet . In most of the original Japanese movie , the big guy has aplantigrade stance . That intend he walks flat on his feet like man . Conversely , digitigrade animals — such as dogs — walk on their toe while keeping their heels off the ground .
" Living crocodylomorphs are plantigrade , but the jury is still out on whether or not all pseudosuchians were plantigrade , peculiarly those that were bipedal , " Arbour sound out via email . No known dinosaur , theropod or otherwise , was similarly flat - footed .
Do His Feet Hold the Answer?
However , for the 2014 American - made flick , Godzilla ’s pes underwent a dramatic re - design . " I guess you could … make the argument that Godzilla 2014 has tortoise - corresponding feet , and many tortoises are also digitigrade in a mode like to elephant , with a big heel launch pad fend for upright toes , " Arbour said . She also pointed out that while " almost all bipedal dinosaurs " only had three weight - bearing digits per fundament , this interlingual rendition of Godzilla keep " at least four toes on the undercoat . "
rightfully huge kingdom beast such as the long - necked dinosaurs have column - shaped , digitigrade feet . Those limbs are really efficient atsupportingmassive consistency system of weights . So if Godzilla was a real creature we ’d probably expect him to have digitigrade hindlimbs — even though a2017 studyclaimed plantigrade mammal animals can dangle their arms more forcefully in combat . ( And Godzilla surelovescombat . )
But of course , it ’s doubtful that Godzilla could physically walk on dry land , no matter what his base looked like . " [ Getting ] Godzilla to stand upright and still would be a complete non - starter,“paleontologistDonald Henderson said in a 2019 email . " Its bone would not be able to support its body weight , and its nitty-gritty would be unable to pump blood to the head . "
This is mostly due to the square - cube law : When youscale upan target , its mass increases more sharply than its surface area . two-fold the height , weight and length of a wooden block and you ’ll have also made the thingeighttimes heavier than it was before .
Godzilla as a Marine Animal
So how would Godzilla make out underwater ? Henderson shape at Canada’sRoyal Tyrell Museumand tackles physics - related interrogative sentence about extinct beast . In 2018 , he used electronic computer modeling to test the speculation thatSpinosaurus — a bird-footed dinosaur with a large sail on its back — was built for swimming . He receive that the deep overall body shape of this Phoebe - backed animal would have made the dinosaur prone to tip over as it swam .
Would Godzilla ’s osteoderms put him at the same jeopardy ? Henderson does n’t think so . By his calculations , the back plates onStegosaurus — a Jurassic herbivore who influenced Godzilla ’s design — only symbolize 17 percent of that dinosaur ’s overall body volume .
Meanwhile , Godzilla ’s plates appear to make up an even smaller fraction of the kaiju ’s total mass . He ’d need to build a new digital model to prove it , but for now Henderson mistrust that " the plate of Godzilla would not cause it to tip " during swim sessions .
Still , as a marine animal , Godzilla would face pile of other problem . Seagoing creatures be given to be streamline . With his toothed osteoderms and chunky legs , Godzilla is anything but . Therefore , he ’d need to use stacks of extra energy in ordering to propel himself through the piddle .
" The estimable choice for Godzilla to float would be to ripple its physical structure and tail to produce wave that journey down the soundbox , " Henderson explained . " imagine of how crocodiles and salamander swim when they want to move speedily . They close their implements of war and legs close to the body , and use sideways motion … to push back against the water and get a advancing thrust . "
By the room , semiaquatic behaviorwas — and still is — widespread among the pseudosuchians . On the other helping hand , there ’s no validation that any non - bird theropod was habitually amphibious . Yet some of them did take the occasional dip . In Utah , there ’s a series of 190 - million - year - old dinotracksmade by theropods whose toe barely trash the ground as they waddle along .
For his part , Carpenter disagrees with the pseudosuchian identity contention . Since theropods could clear swim , he think Godzilla ’s seagoing ways do n’t preclude the monster from being a bona fide dinosaur . Furthermore , as we ’ve seen , the kaiju does share a mountain of traits with the ceratosaurians . If he ’s not a member of that group , then his ancestors likely evolved all of those feature severally . This scenario is certainly plausible ( it ’s a phenomenon called " convergent evolution " ) . But Carpenter reckon the similarities between Godzilla and theropod dinos are credibly too numerous to be co-occurrent .
" We already have it away that Dr. Yamane [ a character from the 1954 movie ] declare the original Godzilla a dinosaur , " Carpenter says , " and since he was on site , I ’ll take his intelligence . "
