paleontology

[bright veldt]

They keep it ambiguous as some kind of troodontid (potentially because of the whole Troodon not being a valid name thing going on during production).

[arctic turtle]

Ah ok 👌🏻

[bright veldt]

But yeah, think of this from the scientist’s perspective. To us just keeping it as Troodon makes complete sense, but that’s only because we have this picture of what the animal is in our heads. That image is founded on the foundation that is the material, the bones. Imagine trying to figure out a taxon from the ground up. Normally, you’d look at the holotype, see what was unique about it, and as you compare it to new material that comes in, what the animal looks like becomes more and more clear. Now try and compare anything to a fragment of a tooth and you see where the problem is.

[light osprey]

Lemme see if it got this right - All the variously assigned Troodon species, not including formosus (?), were reassigned to various other definitively valid genera. The holotype from which the original genus was named is still too fragmentary to determine it as any distinct genus, so it’s technically still considered a Troodon sp. but in practicality it’s so fragmentary that reasonably it shouldn’t be considered a distinct genus with a species name attached to it?

[bright veldt]

Yes

[night locust]

Is the little "beard" on the metriacanthosaurus accurate or even the poison? I couldn't find anything about it online so i selected the speedy variant just cause it looked "shaved"

[bright veldt]

There is no evidence of venomous or poisonous dinosaurs at all. Metriacanthosaurus is known mostly from just its hips and vertebrae, so the majority of the animal’s appearance is based on relatives. I believe the body mists resembles sinraptor while the head most resembles yangchuanosaurus.

[cinder jewel]

The beard is just fun and mildly plausible speculation

[night locust]

Honestly metri is just stamped in my mind cause it's the first embryo nedry steals in jurassic park

[night bluff]

I could imagine if there was a venomous dinosaur it'd be akin to komodo venom, nothing neurotoxin level, but like a nasty blood thinner.

[arctic turtle]

Another question. I’m bored so I’m creating a Dinosaur to draw lol. Is it possible for a dromeosaur like dinosaur be 6 feet tall to the hip yet still be extremely agile if it has a light frame and feathers that are positioned in a way to allow wind to just flow off them creating little drag on the animal?

[night bluff]

Look up the beishanlong. It's more orinthomimid but it may fit the bill.

[bright veldt]

The largest dromaeosaur isn’t that height

[arctic turtle]

I get that I’m just wondering if it could theoretically work

[night bluff]

Gigantoraptor might also be a good reference. It's the largest known oviraptorid

[tough parcel]

It'd need some adaptations, not just funny wings

Namely short (but not too short) feet, decently long tail to whip around, and long legs

Look at tyrannosaurs such as Alioramus and other juveniles (tyrannosaurs)

[flat pond]

Well one thing I’m glad is that both Rajasaurus and Majungasaurus will be easy to tell apart in Prehistoric Planet 2, especially since abelisaurs are known to have unique head ornaments.

[bright veldt]

seething at pycno

[night bluff]

I guess the last reference for large raptor-like I could think of is the maip macrothorax.

[light osprey]

Sorry, best I can do is a 3 ton carnotaurus

[flat pond]

Agreed

[keen forum]

if you want agility a short tail might be good as well with long legs

[flat pond]

Especially look at how different they look compared to Carnotaurus, they are more low laying abelisaurs while Carnotaurus is more high up.

[tough parcel]

Would a long tail not be better? Akin to cheetahs and such?

[jagged trellis]

cheetahs aren't exactly agile when compared to stuff like even their own prey

[amber dune]

They pretty slim tho?

[night bluff]

It's fast for sure, but in a straight line.

[jagged trellis]

correct but longer tails are for balance and sustaining, shorter ones can help with being able to move in a direction better

[amber dune]

Oh makes sense

[little mauve]

Relatively shorter tails help with inertia and increase agility https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6387760/#:~:text=Tyrannosaurid dinosaurs had large preserved,quickly than other large theropods.

[jagged trellis]

pretty sure the only outlier are squirrels seeing they got a good deal of everything to the tail rules

[keen forum]

theropods such as gorgo, carch, and young rex have shorter tails during their fastest part of their lives it seems to be a cursorial trait

[amber zinc]

new trailer?

[bright veldt]

There were images released somewhere

[amber zinc]

found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XCUnEPVLOc

[flat pond]

Tarbosaurus coming back is awesome, was one of my favorites in it besides Tyrannosaurus.

Tbh, I would love to see a dinosaur game use them high quality models. Sadly we’d never would get them in our lifetime by the time they would come out.

[amber zinc]

I love the two upcoming abelisaurs

[pearl briar]

uhh taxonomic situation, basically "Troodon" was described off of a tooth and had other issues regarding it's taxonomy so the animals previously called "Troodon" got split into newly named genera and the name Troodon can't get used when referring to troodontid genera or species, but the name of the clade "troodontidae" remains so troodontids r still a thing, it's just their namesake which is not

[rich onyx]

IIRC, weren’t pachycephalosaurs once believed to be troodontids based on teeth?

[pearl briar]

idk for that case
srry

[tough parcel]

Yes

[sturdy reef]

So uuuh

Any prehistoric ancestors of Crocodilians (Extended Essay)

[stiff osprey]

We can't pinpoint the exact prehistoric species that was the ancestor to crocodylians, but there are plenty of cool extinct ones. You've got dwarf crocs, giant crocs, land crocs, filter-feeding crocs, dinosaur-eating crocs, mammal-copying crocs... etc

[sturdy reef]

Hmmm. I wanna talk about the prehistoric ones like Sarco, Deinosuchus, Purrasaurus, Anatosuchus, etc.. (idk about Sarco since it’s close but not enough to hit home as being related)

[stiff osprey]

Puru and Deinosuchus are true crocodilians, but Anato and Sarco are not, Anato is a notosuchian and Sarco is a pholidosaur

[sturdy reef]

I see. I’ll try and find more ancient crocodilians and I’ll scratch out Sarco and Anato

[stiff osprey]

some cool ones I'd suggest are Mekosuchus (tiny land crocodylian with a mammal like skull), Quinkana (apex land predator that lived alongside megalania) and Mourasuchus (close relative of Purus that decided to become a whale)

[sturdy reef]

Bet. I’ll consider those. Also I’m starting with a research question like this:

“To what extent did Modern Crocodilians evolve from their ancient ancestors?”

This a good one?

[ancient crystal]

So what do ya'll think about that new T. rex paper?

[woeful falcon]

What one

[stiff osprey]

I assume that would be the 'runs underwater' paper

Sure, if its prey ran into water, rex would probably chase after it no problem. But no way in hell that was its main strategy

[frigid coral]

not another "but it wouldnt be able to run fast" logic-based paper

[ancient crystal]

Nautilus said earlier that due to the way its femur is built rex had a chance at being faster than giga, is that true?

[stiff osprey]

it's likely rex would be marginally faster than giga at the same weight. But build doesn't make much of a difference at those sizes

[bright veldt]

I think it's likely. People like to say giga or other similar theropods would be faster due to being generally lighter but they really aren't built for running fast either. Tyrannosaurs and Carcharodontosaurs are convergent in a lot of ways, both in niche and what being big does to theropod bodies.

I've always found it amusing that large carcharodontosaurs have absolutely tiny arms as well, just as small as tyrannosaurs, yet nobody pays them mind.

[vast narwhal]

Is prehistoric planet 2 just expanding on the same animals and updating knowledge or showing new animals along with old

[stiff osprey]

showing new animals from the same time period

[bright veldt]

@acoustic ibex @quick dove What did anything I say there get disproven? I'm not saying all herbivores are fodder, at all. There are many ways herbivores survive another day that don't involve killing or maiming their attackers. Today, only a small portion of herbivores actually go out of their way to fight, cause it's just generally a stupid thing to do that they, unlike their predators, have no serious reason to do. You generally see it in larger animals that would have more difficulty escaping danger. Let me just give you some statistics real quick. Hadrosaurs matured, very very quickly. They were ready to breed at the age of 3 years old. This is what is usually seen in prey animals that're regularly fed upon by predators. On top of this, triceratops is the most common large animal in it's habitat. Something had to be eating them fairly frequently or else Hell Creek would've been overrun. I am all for the aggressive herbivore trope, I just think that it's better for people's expectations to be realistic than for it to go to the opposite spectrum, from "herbivores fodder" to "all herbivores are badass and kill their predators". There's nuance in everything.

I find it likely that most hadrosaurs and ceratopsids would've ran from predators and used speed and numbers in their herds for protection rather than outright fighting.

There would be exceptions ofcourse. Some hadrosaurs got massive, and would've had a large size advantage on their predators, and some ceratopsids like the triceratopsini (triceratops and kin) seem to have horns more practical for fighting than purely display. It's all in the details.

[jagged trellis]

id say its somewhere in the middle: they do what they can to survive, whether it means engaging in combat or attempting to escape, depending on the case tbh

[bright veldt]

Ankylosaurs in particular are an interesting case. They have the formidable weapon that is their tails, but they also are generally much smaller than their predators, and their armor seems more built to minimize serious damage than outright prevent it. We also know some ankylosaurs were colored to camoflauge, which suggested they very much preferred to hide and avoid trouble rather than being these unstoppable tanks that would always stood their ground against a threat.

[jagged trellis]

like if a edmont is cornered by a rex is gonna try and beat it to a pulp to get out of there, if a trike sees a rex but can walk away, it'll walk away if it wants to

[acoustic ibex]

Well first of all. I was talking to the other guy. xD but sure I’ll love to debate this with you, but let’s take a different direction.

First do you have any evidence that Hadrosaurs grew and matured quickly? That would surely help out in this situation.

Next. I did bring up the fight or flight scenario. I said, they could potentially kill their aggressors in attempting fight or flight, it’s happened many times in battle. It likely would’ve never been uncommon no matter the timeline.

There is definitely no chance that most Herbivores would definitely go on a killing spree immediately they see danger. Some may run away, some may defend their babies. It all depends, like I had said in the message.

However, it doesn’t mean prey was easy to take down, especially herbivores.

[frigid coral]

the chance, for most species, of the herbivore fighting rather than getting tf out of there if they can is extremely low

[jagged trellis]

also thats new news on the coloring for me, interesting so my guess is smaller ones with proportionally larger predators would use stealth more while bulkier ones would prolly be more ready to fight, tho could go any way tbh

[acoustic ibex]

That’s fair. It honestly depends on the species. No matter how hard I try, I can’t see a Galli or Struthi fighting back at a Rex.

[stiff osprey]

some hadrosaur growth curves - they take the least time to reach ~1000kg of any dinosaur group

[bright veldt]

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2008.0912

"Hadrosaurs grew rapidly, and quantifying their growth is key to understanding life-history interactions between predators and prey during the Late Cretaceous. In this study, we longitudinally sampled a sequence of lines of arrested growth (LAGs) from an essentially full-grown hadrosaur Hypacrosaurus stebingeri (MOR 549). Spatial locations of LAGs in the femoral and tibial transverse sections of MOR 549 were measured and circumferences were calculated. For each bone, a time series of circumference data was fitted to several stochastic, discrete growth models. Our results suggest that the femur and the tibia of this specimen of Hypacrosaurus probably followed a Gompertz curve and that LAGs reportedly missing from early ontogeny were obscured by perimedullary resorption. In this specimen, death occurred at 13 years and took approximately 10–12 years to reach 95 per cent asymptotic size. The age at growth inflection, which is a proxy for reproductive maturity, occurred at approximately 2–3 years. Comparisons with several small and large predatory theropods reveal that MOR 549 grew faster and matured sooner than they did. These results suggest that Hypacrosaurus was able to partly avoid predators by outgrowing them." From the abstract of said paper.

It's a common strategy in the life histories of animals that face heavy predation. Grow and breed quickly.

[frigid coral]

sorry for lumping something into this convo, but on the note of herbivores overpopulating without predators, how would Pinacosaurus, known for being in an environment with no known predator large enough to actually pose a threat, not overpopulate?

[stiff osprey]

heavy predation of the young
but didn't it live with Tarbosaurus?

[acoustic ibex]

Ahh you’re right. But guess what? Depending where you’re going with this. It can prove that Hadrosaurs had to have a fair amount of children quickly in order to grow them to adult fast, because smaller hadrosaurs would be preyed upon easily. BUT as they get older and bigger they might be proven to be harder to take down. Numbers game has always been around. Sometimes it could be because animals die quicker, other times, it’s because they need multiple offspring to get numbers up.

@frigid coral To answer that question, they still have predators, again, it doesn’t mean the prey has 100% success rate. This debate is mainly to prove that herbivores are capable of fighting back or for some species being agro toward carnivores.

[jagged trellis]

they got into social disagreements and some moved away forming a city which sunk under sea

[bright veldt]

There are other pressures that prevent overpopulation, like environmental resources and competition. But yeah large tyrannosaurs are still very much a serious threat to most ankylosaurs. We have a tarchia skull which suggests it survived a tarbosaurus attack, and we know from a dietary study on tarbosaurus that, while they preferred sauropods and hadrosaurs, there was at least one individual that really liked its ankylosaurs, likely learning to hunt a more atypical food source like some predator individuals today are known to do.

[acoustic ibex]

My stance is, that herbivores aren’t always an easy target. And if they can, will fight back to protect themselves.

[frigid coral]

afaik its only concrete that it lived with velociraptor, oviraptor, and other small theropods.

[bright veldt]

This is a really good video that goes into the reality of "aggressive" herbivores. A must watch for animal/dino lovers imo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be8QWbQDnXA

[acoustic ibex]

Ohhh I think I seen this before.

[bright veldt]

In a nutshell, the idea of aggressive herbivores is very much true, but it is nice to have realistic expectations and understand there's much more to surviving predators than simply "can it beat it in a fight".

[frigid coral]

understandable!

[acoustic ibex]

Let me repeat to point out what I’ve had said earlier multiple times. I’m not thinking of agro agro KOS situations. I’m saying the midst of fight or flight, herbivores are known even in today’s documentary are known to fight back or known to have killed their pursuers while fleeing the situation. IMO fairly, I feel because of the Sheer Size of the Hadrosaurs back then, it proves growing big was useful to them in the long run. In fairness, this could be an intimidation factor, but although it’s unknown how these situations would’ve went down. I’d assume it’d be scary to have something as large as a Edmontosaurs laying all of that fat on you. Whether it wins or not doesn’t matter, but nothing wants to go down easily.

[frigid coral]

that is what they show in documentaries, however that doesn't reflect an overall account if im reading your statement correctly

[acoustic ibex]

I mean. I don’t think a Hadrosaurid Dino would go out it’s way to kill a Rex. Obviously, I can see that being terrifying for that creature. But documentary or not, the best way to get an idea for past life forms is to know what our current life forms are like and what the struggles are in hunting. Some of the creatures we have aren’t even that big, but seeing a wolf hunting an elk, which both are pretty big creatures, I can tell even during a flight response, wolves can get hurt the middle of it.

Tbh, I can’t really say much since I wasn’t there 105 or 65 million years ago. But I doubt any hunt came without it’s risks.

[frigid coral]

oh yeah def, while running hooves can seriously hurt a predator

[bright veldt]

I just don't see it given most predators are capable of regularly handling prey up to double their size, and even the giant edmontosaurus individuals aren't that much larger than tyrannosaurus.

[jagged trellis]

to be fair SOME of those cases are in pretty niche zones like gorillas and leopards but again fear is the main factor here, and how a animal responds to fear can determine a outcome( also size helps abit)

[bright veldt]

As a more regular example, puma are capable of handling bull elk when they get the chance, which are 3x larger than themselves, and wildebeest are over double the size of leopards.

[acoustic ibex]

It’s a realistic reality to me. I think it’s even been proven that hunts fail most of the time or at least half the times. As either the prey gets away or the predator dies catching their prey. Also seeing that the Edmontosaurus was just as big as the Rex’s during its time shows that it could’ve gone wrong if there was misstep taken.

[jagged trellis]

was about to mention leo and wildebeest tho that one is more on and off, and even tho mountain lions are pretty wimpy, bull anything being mega agro can cost them abit so can see that one

[bright veldt]

What I'm saying is that are these predators likely to suceed? No. Most hunts fail. But most hunts don't fail because the predator dies.

[jagged trellis]

yeh most fail due to the predator not risking it, or the prey item escaping, unless you are dealing with a dragonfly, which case there is no escape and best start praying

[acoustic ibex]

I’ll give you this. It’s not always because the predator dies, but depending on the species, I can imagine what the real kill count must be. For this a great example is Crocs and Hippos.

[novel atlas]

https://twitter.com/XtinctDesign/status/1656060711322402817?t=YVboVt38pixmi0WnaW0Y8g&s=19

XtinctDesign (@XtinctDesign)

I have received a few comments wondering why my #shunosaurus is so big. It seems people are more familiar with Shunosaurus lii but there is a bigger species.

#paleoart #sauropod #dinosaur #blender3d

Likes

179

Twitter · May 9, 2023, 10:16 PM

[elfin pulsar]

Best sauropod

[bright veldt]

The amount of deaths in conflict with animals are often greatly exaggerated. For example, while hippos are extremely territorial and often attack most animals that enter their water space, they mostly ignore crocodiles. There is also as dramatic the case as the classic conflict between lions and hyenas. While injuries can be frequent in such conflicts, and they will kill young and vulnerable adults of each other, deaths in such conflicts are not common at all (the exception being adult male lions, which often are a large cause of adult hyena deaths, but even then they're not as common as lionesses).

[frigid coral]

crocs most of the time dont go anywhere near hippos nor actively hunt them

[weak osprey]

false

[elfin pulsar]

Sauropod LITE

[jagged trellis]

still funny to me folks romanticize large predators when they tend to have horrid success rates meanwhile dragonflies chilling with 97-99% success rate

[acoustic ibex]

I had to pause what I was saying to see this. xD omg… someone really did miss neck day.

[bright veldt]

There are some carnivore success stories. Cheetahs succeed more than they fail (60%) and Painted Wolves have an 85% success rate.

[jagged trellis]

to be fair on cheetahs end they tend to get bullied alot so moreso mafia payments, but ye chirping doggos do pretty good, shame they get persecuted by farmers so much

[weak osprey]

Painted wolves are actually scary. They are designed to just run forever until their prey collapses, then they just eat it alive.

also wild dogs have been documented just killing for fun simply because they are so good at it

[acoustic ibex]

Ahhh. But is the prey capable of having a kill count. Like I’ve stated earlier whether the prey succeeds or not, will it fight back? Sure it varies on species, will the prey be hard to take down is also important. I doubt it was simple. In fairness, we haven’t seen marks proving that Hadrosaurs did whatever fighting but it’s not something that should be ruled out. After all, the animals are sadly extinct and studying them is just difficult.

But I wouldn’t passed reality, since it’s such a heavy animal.

[vocal breach]

What you guys think of this Utah?

[jagged trellis]

pretty sure we do have a edmont or some hadrosaur with healed bite marks from rex suggesting it survived a encounter with em, tho could just be from escaping

[acoustic ibex]

My ultimate understanding is the common misconception Hadrosaurs were easy prey for Rex’s to take down without fail. They can be prey to Rex, maybe even some other carnivores given the situation. But It’s not guaranteed a survival.

[amber dune]

It’s so pretty

[elfin pulsar]

It looks good

Also your name scares me

[jagged trellis]

8999 failed before him, but he will not be like the others

[frigid coral]

most hadrosaurs weren't massive like edmonto or shant, though were still heavy compared to others in the environment. however, being built for running, maturing quickly, etc, show very clear signs of frequent or preferred predation on hadrosaurs, otherwise these adaptations wouldn't happen. afaik multiple hadrosaurs have been shown with nasty injuries, some in very vulnerable spots. many wounds were healed however. if it was due to the hadrosaur fighting or running, we do not know. but its clear edmonto, and other hadrosaurs, were on the menu

how frequent this was is unkown

[acoustic ibex]

I didn’t say they weren’t. But the real question was it easy prey or not. As for your other statements are. Make sure to read what creatures lived during the time period. Sometimes check the date of the hadrosaur. I’ve seen plenty of hadrosaurs that lived before late Cretaceous, at the same time, in a location where there are no large rex’s hunting them.

I’m using Edmontosaurus because it’s an easier example for a direct species that did hunt them. If an animal wasn’t hunted, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

[bright veldt]

Beasts of the Mesozoic and Cyberzoic have the best dinosaur figures on the market. 100% dope

[frigid coral]

how easy something is to kill varies heavily yeah

[acoustic ibex]

That’s where I’m getting at, but because we weren’t there. This argument is hard to prove whether they were or not. I actually think I might have some receipts to prove they were a challenge for a Rex though.

[jagged trellis]

ngl the hammond collection has some decent ones but the main point is the price being super cheap for the most part on em

[frigid coral]

i like botm, but the price makes it hard to swallow, esp 25 dollars for a tiny lil guy (amazing work, just sayin,) that's very brittle

[clever sable]

Problem is, cheetahs can literally get bullied of their kills by virtually anything

[acoustic ibex]

https://youtu.be/SYztJ4cORtk

[bright veldt]

Cheetahs being fodder's highly exaggerated.

[jagged trellis]

agreed tho it does have some rooting

[acoustic ibex]

It even proves your growth fact correct. There is also orgs in the description to read the info yourself.

[bright veldt]

Yes, they get their kills stolen fairly regularly, but it's not common (I think it's only about 1/3 of their kills at best), and even if that seems like a high number, cheetahs....don't really care. Their hunting success rates and rates of reproduction are accustomed to dealing with these types of pressures by kill theft and intraspecific killing. Their endangerment is related to humans rather than being outcompeted in any way.

[jagged trellis]

so basically cheetahs pay taxes

[clever sable]

Yeah they don't get chased off by stuff like lone vultures but lions, African wild dogs, lions, hyenas and leopards will steal their kills

[jagged trellis]

nah vultures can do it as well, just everything stealing it is rarer than folks think but more common than cheetah fanboys let ya know

[clever sable]

Large groups of vultures will, not singular vultures

[acoustic ibex]

Well now Incoming vulture and cheetah debates Lmaoo

[jagged trellis]

vultures will tho it is rarer for clear reasons, not a happened once therefor always happen ordeal but not as easy as a hyena being able to steal it or lion

[acoustic ibex]

https://tenor.com/view/bird-vulture-gif-8910827

[clever sable]

Marabou storks are better

[acoustic ibex]

I just like birds. There is no debate. Lets give them all love and affection even if some of them eat dead things.

[clever sable]

I like Marabous because they eat baby flamingos

[jagged trellis]

i like vultures because they have projectile weapons

[trim crag]

Exactly. People like TierZoo and Casual Geographic give cheetahs a really bad rep. For animals living in one of the most competitive ecosystems in the world they sure do well despite "being bullied every day by other predators"

[bright veldt]

Casual Geographic hasn't given them crap really. Tierzoo on the other hand, yeah. He's the subject of my next video but that'll be a long time.

[trim crag]

I've seen CG give cheetahs a bad name but I wouldn't be able to remember the video, he was basically just spouting the same nonsense that TZ was. Although CG also likes to say that ratels (honey badgers) steal the kills of leopards on occasion by climbing up trees and bullying them off the meat. (which could not be more far from the truth, leopards are one of if not THE most active predators of ratel)

[compact leaf]

casual geographic has a tendency to blow things way out of proportion so it wouldn't shock me entirely if he gave cheetahs a worse rep than they have, tierzoo has a really interesting concept but it makes it seems like some animals are inherently bad (if they were really bad they wouldn't exist)

he rags on a few prey species a lot but impala have had essentially the same body plan for at least 4 million years, obviously it works even if they're not running around decking their predators on the regular

[trim crag]

These channels seem to forget the "rule" of natural selection, where they'll take clips out of context to use as proof that a certain animal sucks or is really good at life

[bright veldt]

I must clarify though that CG has generally gotten much better with research over time. The myths I see him still spreading are dolphins getting high from pufferfish (they literally just play with them cause toy balls), everything with honey badgers, and tigers paralyzing or mimicing prey through sound. Outside of these he's pretty reliable.

[trim crag]

Agreed, but as a cat/carnivoran fan it is pretty irritating to have people peddle these senseless rumors based in myth or bias rather than genuine fact. This of course does not negate the fact that he definitely has improved in the accuracy of his information over time

[soft moss]

Who wins 1v1 albertosaurus or gorgosaurus

[stiff osprey]

tie

[stoic tinsel]

yeah itd be a tie cause they are like stupidly similar animals

its also good to note that large predators like to avoid each like the plague so there would have to be some extreme circumstances for there to be conflict between large predators

[ripe ruin]

my beloved

[neat drum]

do you think there were any cretaceous fish with insane metabolisms like modern fish?

like you have dragonets who starve to death if they dont make a kill every 3 seconds

[pearl briar]

a goofy lookin ahh dinosaur with it's mysterious hump-like spine
my question: any innacuracies?
are the length & weight is the most up-to-date estimates rn?

[bright veldt]

About right yeah. An acro of that size is about 5.5 tons

[eager skiff]

Where do u find these comparisons pictures?

[pearl briar]

in twitter i got from sm paleo artist like gabriel ugueto, fabio alejandro (aka dragonthunders), @tough parcel , king edmarka, etc

[eager skiff]

Okay

[pearl briar]

what abt the length?
is it most up-to-date?

[woeful falcon]

From the skeletal that illustration is based on, its specifically 11.7m, which would be about 38 feet.

Tricky thing with using both feet and meters is if you round the number, rounding down from .7 doesn't seem like a lot, but when you measure it in feet you lose two feet by rounding down. Losing .7 meters is actually pretty substantial, its almost a full meter (comparable to a yard)

My recommendation would be to say about 11.7m and 38 feet as opposed to rounding down. You'd also actually round up there too.

[pearl briar]

11-11.7 m or only 11.7 m?

[woeful falcon]

Well. Both would be fine because there surely were Acrocanthosaurus that were just 11 meters. But that one specifically is 11.7 meters.

Unless falcon for whatever absurd reason made it smaller than Liam's skeletal

[storm heron]

There are also occasions where Cheetahs scare away Leopards and Hyenas, even young Lions.

[woeful falcon]

Of course SIW's skeletals don't have measurements. This is just to show their sizes aren't uniform. I'm gonna go out and assume Liam's is scaled to 14345.

What a cool animal
(Cr: XtinctDesign)

[storm heron]

I like the slightly upright pose it has

[trim crag]

adult lions too

[trim crag]

in response to this message (idt the reply worked)

[heady thunder]

That looks funny

[trim crag]

Yeah lol

[storm heron]

Woah, now this is interesting.

[late gale]

Thats wholesome :)

[late gale]

What is that.

I need to know

[tough parcel]

Brachytracholopan

[late gale]

Ty i love this thing now

[tulip dove]

Brachy is such a goofy ''little'' fella

[late gale]

Looks like pretty deep water to me

[rose thorn]

Gotta remember that Rex is some 13 ft tall so, relatively speaking, that’s shallow water

[heady thunder]

Rex swims and Rex runs, while spino cant stand

[novel atlas]

T.rex could get larger. Could.

[late gale]

Yea but like i cant even see the bottom of the water personally

[light osprey]

I mean, the paper on the Rex aquatic hunting was more like suggesting a very occasional and situational hunting method.

[jagged trellis]

need a reminder for sarcosuchus weight seeing i need to check if sources magically changed, it was 2.5-3 ton area correct?

[stiff osprey]

3-4 ton

[jagged trellis]

so slightly off but got the general zone, thanks

[stoic tinsel]

@main peak Kaprosuchus is only known from a single nearly complete skull that strongly suggests a semi aquatic lifestyle typical of most crocodyliformes, in fact it's closest relative mahajangasuchus has limb proportions consistent with most crocodiles

[main peak]

Some have pointed out that there are traits in the school that point to terrestrial lifestyles too, its a little subjective

Also, mahajangasuchus and kapro lived 30 million years apart in very different regions, a lot could have changed since then

[bright veldt]

You can be terrestrial leaning but still be a semi-aquatic animal. A lot of crocodilians today have that type of lifestyle.

[main peak]

Right, I highly doubt it was fully terrestrial as stated in the other channel. I don't think anyone supports that anymore, I should have made that clarification

[stoic tinsel]

kaprosuchus' eyes are on top of its head it has conical ziphodont teeth these traits are not seen in terrestrial predators at most it's like Cuban crocodiles that spend more than time on land than most crocodiles but it's far from being terrestrial

[bright veldt]

And yeah the real active time of animals has little to do with how they’d look. Kaprosuchus is not more basal than mahajung is. They’re literally each other’s closest relatives.

As it stands there’s no reason to suggest kapro had a body plan any different from a typical crocodilian’s.

[stiff osprey]

It was probably more terrestrial than modern crocs, judging by the more forward facing eyes, and Mahajangasuchus having slightly longer legs than true crocodylians

But yeah, not the big cat-like animal from Primeval, still tied to the water

[main peak]

Yes but those eyes are also positioned strangely compared to other neosuchians, that doesn't mean it was terrestrial but it clearly had an overlap in vision

[stoic tinsel]

^

[bright veldt]

The modern kaprosuchus

[main peak]

Right, so I think we agree mostly from what I'm gathering. It was not an analogue of modern crocodiles though

I should have been more clear with what I meant

[stoic tinsel]

Mahajangasuchus' body plan is notably similar to Cuban crocodiles with the biggest difference being slightly longer limb proportions

[bright veldt]

Again, there are modern crocodilians that are semi-aquatic but are terrestrial leaning in a lot of ways. Cuban crocodiles are very competent on land, and some caiman species hunt on land at night.

[jagged trellis]

so basically the grocery store is more on land for kapro but still chills near water

[main peak]

But, Cuban crocodiles do walk more upright do they not?

[sage cave]

And they “gallop”

I meant they have a more run rather than side to side movement

[stoic tinsel]

Yes they spend the most time on land also all crocodiles can gallop depending on their size ofc

[bright veldt]

They’re still mostly aquatic animals, but they’re the most terrestrial crocodilians

[light osprey]

Kaprosuchus is more adapted to the terrestrial condition, but it’s not a gallivanting sprinter.

[stoic tinsel]

^

Cuban crocodiles having notably longer limbs than other crocodilians

[sage cave]

See? Not the side to side lizard run! https://tenor.com/view/gator-running-alligator-gif-26617988

[bright veldt]

I wouldn’t say notably longer tbh. It’s just more noticable cause they hold themselves up higher

[sage cave]

They are such cool animals

[stoic tinsel]

It's more noticeable in their forelimbs tbf

[bright veldt]

The modern interpetation of kapro has longer limbs than other crocs but it’s not as big of a difference as you’d think looking at this image (like crocs don’t really go completely upright like this for one)

[sage cave]

I think it would be a bit thicker tbh? ESP in the tail area

[chilly knot]

I would argue that paleosuchus is more terrestrial than cubans

[stoic tinsel]

Yeah and kaprosuchus' skeletal is quite literally just a Mahajangasuchus skeletal with kapros head strapped on

[bright veldt]

Ah here we go. This one’s similar but more bulked out.

[sage cave]

Yeah that looks better imo

(Looks wise not accuracy wise. I know little to nothing abt how accurate anything is)

[chilly knot]

tissue looks a bit odd

[sage cave]

Wdym?

[light osprey]

So they do stand with their legs parallel to the pelvis and not adjacent?

[main peak]

Kapro or Cuban crocos?

[light osprey]

Kaprosuchus

[main peak]

We don't know for sure as we don't have anything but the head iirc, but modern crocodiles can kinda do both

[chilly knot]

should hang a bit more on the belly and neck area

[sage cave]

Ah, yeah

?

How’s this

[chilly knot]

better

[sage cave]

Awesome

[tiny holly]

also like i think its worth pointing out that just because there is a debate doesnt mean its really a debate that means much yknow? like you can say its debated that rex was solely a scavenger because some people have claimed that. but it doesnt mean that's really worth mentioning given general consensus.

Only people clinging to terrestrial kapro are clinging to outdated ideas as far as I can tell

[light osprey]

I think there is a valid discussion as to the extent of its lifestyle pertaining to either condition.

[tiny holly]

My point is that its not really worth bringing up that its debated if someone is talking about rex hunting. Just because a tiny minority made a claim that it only scavenged doesn't mean its relevant, in particular when said claim has been very hotly contested and debunked

There are few people still pushing terrestrial kapro these days, and thats largely an outdated view. So I think it becomes somewhat redundant to continue to insist on it being a debate beyond a certain point

[light osprey]

What would you define as being the extent of unreasonable debate?

[tiny holly]

I think it would depend largely on how much of a debate is it really (is it like 50/50 or 90/10), how old and new is the evidence and studies for either side, and what counterclaims have been made. Obviously this does make it somewhat subjective as you might find certain claims more convincing than others. But personally in the case of kapro and the way the conversation was going in both here and #modding I just thought it was a little irrelevant to continue to insist on it being currently debated

Don't get me wrong I do think it is good to acknowledge other claims! But if they don't hold much water there's no reason to entertain them as if they do

[rich onyx]

So since all the Cerato mains are crying ATM... is cerato having Bonebreak supported by paleontological evidence or no?

[bright veldt]

Any large animal can break bones that’s not really unusual. Cerato’s bite force also is about average for a theropod of its size.

[jagged trellis]

wanna get technical all animals can break bones, just how effectively is the question, tho pretty sure cera had more grappling mouth for handling bulkier stuff if i recall so there is that

[light osprey]

2,400 Newtons in the anterior part of the jaws.

[tough parcel]

Sounds big...how does that compare to an Allosaurus

[stiff osprey]

Bone break in these games refers to animals specialized for crushing bites, which Cerato is very much not. It would be a good bleeder, tho

[light osprey]

Newtons sorry

[rich onyx]

Yeah, IIRC Rex is estimated to have had a biteforce of about 8,000 lbs? Which IIRC converts to at least an order of magnitude more than a Cerato

[little mauve]

There's an allosaur pelvis with teeth marks from another carnivore, probably torvosaurus or ceratosaurus, but bone scraping is different from bone crushing. Ceratosaurus certainly had a nasty bite but was not a bone crusher like a tyrannosaur

[light osprey]

Tyrannosaurus sits at 25,400 N in the anterior portion of the jaw.

[rich onyx]

If I remember correctly, most carnosaurids had bites that focused more on making their prey bleed out, and it was the tyrannosaurids that switched to "break its leg with a bite and cripple it"

[light osprey]

The cerated teeth were probably adept at cutting through muscle tissues, so you could probably cripple an animal that way as well.

[rich onyx]

I'll laugh if they give Cerato a "Tendon Slice" ability

[sage cave]

Probably smthn like that yeah

[little mauve]

especially by attacking the caudofemoralis

Then you have abelisaurids with their bear trap mouths, many were probably good at biting and holding on. Possibly grappling sauropods by the neck or crushing their throats. They were doing something different for sure

[main peak]

Of course! Though to be clear, the debate is more in regards to exactly how semi aquatic it was. And the fact is, Kapro's skull has some traits that are distinct from aquatic animals and that has not changed. I should not have used the term terrestrial in the way that I did, but I still stand by the statement that it is scholastically debated as to the nature of its semi-aquatic status

[bright veldt]

Eh not quite true. The trauma inflicted by carcharodontosaurids and tyrannosaurids was likely similar, but under different methods. Tyrannosaurids relied largely on extremely powerful bite forces, while carcharodontosaurids, in conjunction with their bite strength (which was still a force of several tons btw) dealt damage in neck-powered downward strikes. Either way it’s devastating.

[light osprey]

Hopefully nothing like the hatchet nonsense lol.

[rich onyx]

Oh this I need to hear haha

[bright veldt]

Yeah not that. That’s dumb, but launching your head forward into a target with knife like teeth is going to inflict serious trauma. It’s also believed to be how terror birds used their beaks rather than outright pecking afaik

[little mauve]

I'll defend the hatchet hypothesis insofar that it did predict the neck muscles driving the power of allosaur bites

[light osprey]

There’s a certain aspect of “bro-science” that taints the nomenclature of it

[bright veldt]

Something that I’ve learned more and more is that a lot of paleontologists need to take more ecology classes.

[little mauve]

I try to stay 1000 km away from that world as much as I can lol but fair enough

[main peak]

Paleontology and biology sadly clash with each other too often

[covert lintel]

im currently suffering from the affliction of "there are things i want to add to this discussion but my brain isn't working well enough to type anything that doesn't read like word salad, let alone feels like something that's factually correct". my curse

[rich onyx]

I know it's probably a long way off, but I would love it if the devs added a map that was was intended as a loose recreation of a famous formation

[light osprey]

I do despise the misconceptions on Cacharodontosaur bite strength. They were equally capable of delivering a fatal blow with the use of force generated by their face.

[bright veldt]

Here’s a whole compilation of paleontologist gamer moments due to not understanding basic ecology https://twitter.com/omegafreelancer/status/1623520816326496256?s=20&t=iFEAuIDPW1HZS9ZSTkxRkA

Omegafreelancer (Commissions OPEN!) (@omegafreelancer)

While I love paleontology, and its been helpful in understanding life on our planet in both our past, present, and where said life could be going, make no mistake, there have been some seriously bad a ideas to come about from a lack of understanding of basic ecology and biology.

Likes

226

Twitter · Feb 9, 2023, 3:15 AM

[glacial blade]

It's kinda funny now that paleontology is becoming more interdisciplinary but biology and ecology is still kinda overlooked

[little mauve]

To play the devil's advocate, because I agree with the substance of the point, we simply do not have enough data for real ecological or biological study of dinosaurs. It's improving for sure but I think that's a big part of what held it back for so long

[bright veldt]

I’m not really sure what you mean when paleontology is one of the most niche fields in existence

(On top of the fact that academia in general is pretty corrupt and there’s a lot of well known people in the community being discovered to be initiators of harassment and other such awful things)

[rich onyx]

Honestly it's kind of surprising to me that a lot of paleontology programs don't require much past a basic biology class or two, if anything

[little mauve]

Genetics, biomechanics, finite element analysis, (some) ecology & biology, statistical analysis. It is becoming more interdisciplinary but that's truly the cutting edge of research

[light osprey]

Biomechanics seems to be really eyeopening in extinct ecology

[main peak]

Though it must be said, it is amazing what can be discerned through the skeletal structure of an organism alone.

[little mauve]

Paleontology is traditionally "just" a subfield of geology, it's only since the dinosaur renaissance really that the trend to study dinosaurs as living animals has really taken off

[rich onyx]

What's-his-name and the "I discovered multiple new species of sauropods in a single site"?

[main peak]

The thing that is often forgotten, is that many fossilized remains are extremely fragmentary. Tbh, it kind of annoys me how much speculation is done over something like a vertebrae and toe bone

[little mauve]

Absolutely, and through the study of geology we can reconstruct a lot about their environments. It's truly amazing all we can know, these things have been dead for millions of years. It's mind boggling

[bright veldt]

It’s actually more than a handful sadly but that’s as far as I’m going

[light osprey]

…Anyway fenestrae in dinosaurs, noticeable through tissues or not?

[rich onyx]

I know that used to be the artistic standard for decades, but ever since paleoartists started giving dinos fuller faces, I look at stuff like that and I just think, "Honey, you look terrible, have you been eating?"

[little mauve]

I think that degree is potentially reasonable but I wouldn't go much beyond that

[rich onyx]

For me it all comes down to what's going on with crocodilians and birds. If one or two of those groups exhibit a trait, then dinosaurs almost certainly did, too. If neither did, probably not

[cinder jewel]

This is me every time I open my mouth in here don't worry 😛

[little mauve]

We've all been there lmao

[cinder jewel]

Also in that Paleo/biology thread I did not know other predators began increasing in size once titanis died off that's super interesting

[bright veldt]

Yeah the terror birds being second to mammals thing is a complete myth and if anything the opposite happened

[cinder jewel]

Man I wish we still had one continent that still had apex terrestrial birds

[rich onyx]

Australia is probably as close as we can get with the cassowary lol

[jagged trellis]

still funny how the age of mammals saw booms in bird life and the largest land predators being archosaurs, the waters were something else as well

[little mauve]

the vast majority of mammal species still haven't gotten much bigger than they were in the mesozoic

[rich onyx]

The notion of the Cenozoic as the "Age of Mammals" is kind of a fallacy, a lot of clades saw massive success and expansion in the wake of the K-T extinction

[bright veldt]

Cassowaries ain’t aggressive at all either. South America was ruled by reptiles and birds consistently until the majority of the terror birds became extinct at the start of the ice age, and the dominant megafaunal predators of Australia have been monitor lizards since the Pliocene at least, until dingos anyway.

[little mauve]

Crocodylians doing their thing all the while, and still holding down the fort on multiple continents

[cinder jewel]

Crocodilians unaware that extinctions have happened except for the fact that their food tastes different now lol

[rich onyx]

They occasionally wonder out loud whatever happened to their dinosaur neighbors before going back to eating mammals

[chilly knot]

Very extremely common croc W

[tight abyss]

The fact that they havent changed dramatically in millions of years just prove they are peek reptile evolution and crab is peak crustation evolution

[tough isle]

Did you just say cassowaries aren’t aggressive?

[cinder jewel]

Aggressive ≠defensive. A cassowary that feels threatened can eviscerate a person, but they don't go out of their way to do it. You're not food for them, so if you give them space they'll respect it

[tough isle]

They ain’t as bad as ostriches ig

[bright veldt]

Cassowaries are extremely shy. The only times they ever actually strike out are when cornered or defending young, and unless they’re used to humans they’re rarely seen at all. There’s only been a single fatality by a cassowary.

[honest wave]

Honestly it wasn’t even the standard, shrinkwrapping on the face was still fairly uncommon until jp came out

If you look at a lot of early dinosaur depictions, they are actually fairly realistically bulked-out, and even lipped in most cases

Some good examples here. Even if they are very inaccurate, they still did a good job of trying to depict them as realistic animals.

[rich onyx]

Two steps forward, one step back lol

[tough parcel]

Search up William D. Berry from the 1960s, his paleoart

[little mauve]

Berry is so good

(Source is William D. Berry ofc)

[heady thunder]

The guy did some amazing art

[compact leaf]

honestly they’re more aggressive to each other than anything else a lot of the time, the females especially, they’ll actively kill offspring that might not be theirs

[somber knoll]

Cassowaries are really rad, their colours and face structure really helps you visualise better what a dinosaur might've looked like when compared to an ostrich or even raptors

[cinder jewel]

That image is from the 60s? Damn that's really impressive

[little mauve]

Tbf most of Berry's dinosaurs are overall similar to his contemporaries, there are just a few examples like this that were ahead of their time. Across the board though showed a deep understanding of anatomy and approached his reconstructions as real animals, which ultimately are the most important things

[fallow stirrup]

was suchomimus semiaquatic

[wary heath]

why not

[weak osprey]

Probably only semi-semiaquatic. It had adaptations useful for swimming, but it defiantly was a land predator, catching fish and even hunting on the land. I believe suchomimus was the largest predator in it's biome, so it wouldn't have to flee into water or anything, but yeah.

[bright veldt]

As far as we know, no. You can debate with other spinosaurs but Suchomimus firmly lacks any major semi-aquatic adaptations

[weak osprey]

yeah, it could swim good but it could walk and run even better.

[bright veldt]

And yeah, Suchomimus didn’t have too much to fear. On land it was one of the largest animals in its habitat, let alone predator. It’s only serious threat would’ve been Sarcosuchus, but even then Suchomimus is larger and taller, so it wouldn’t have been easy at all for the croc either.

[fallow stirrup]

So is the path of titans sucho in accurate in that sense

[weak osprey]

Not really. It's effective on land so that's accurate, but they made it a much better swimmer than it would've been, for balancing reasons of course (in the game sucho has to deal with larger predators like tyrannosaurus that it obviously didn't face in real life). Sucho probably could fish, and probably ate fish as a large part of it's diet, but it wouldn't swim in water to do it.

[fallow stirrup]

Ok good because I was worried they would remove the fact it could swim🤣

[fallow stirrup]

So it would work similarly to modern day komodo dragons? Being a strong swimmer but no t necessary needing to swim

[bright veldt]

It was an animal that lived it’s life around water and ate aquatic prey. It would’ve been a good swimmer. It just didn’t live in the water. Think less crocodile and more bear.

[weak osprey]

I'm now imagining a group of suchomimus waiting at the top of a waterfall to catch migrating salmon like bears do.

[fallow stirrup]

Crocobear, thanks

[bright veldt]

There’s art like that (baryonyx in this case)

[lunar copper]

I love the idea that spinosaurs could've done this, their overall feel always reminds me of bears

[weak osprey]

I mean it's not like it's an outlandish Idea, gathering is debatable, but they would've been able to do this. Pretty cool concept.

Also I find it interesting that suchomimus has much better swimming in game to deal with larger predators, when in real life it was likely pressure from large theropods appearing (in most cases carcharodontosaurids) that pushed spinosaurids to become true semi-aquatic creatures.

[bright veldt]

Eh there’s debate as to how aquatic they actually are in the first place, and even then idk how much of an impact large macropredators would have when spinosaurs are consistently the biggest theropods in their habitat, combined with the claws.

I can’t think of a single case where a spinosaur isn’t the biggest theropod in its environment now that I think about it.

[light osprey]

I quite like that

[chilly knot]

Depends on how u scale carchar and msnm

[bright veldt]

That’s a maybe still

[weak osprey]

Less of a size thing and more of a "who is more effective as a land predator" thing. I also doubt it was the sole reason for why, as aquatic adaptations among spinosaurs is inconsistent until about 100 mya, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the larger carcharadontosaurids came to be at around the same time.

[bright veldt]

Even then they haven’t figured out spinosaurus so I wouldn’t say anything definite on….spinosaurus in general tbh, on top of its aquaticness. Same goes for most other spinosaurs. Other spinosaurines like ichthyovenator have a fluke tail like spino, and there was one study, that is still controversial, that argued for baryonyx as semi-aquatic. I can only give you a definite answer with Suchomimus cause Suchomimus sucking at being an aquatic animal has, for some reason, been the one consistency in this whole mess lmao

[weak osprey]

More like carcharodontosaurids started being better land predators, so spinosaurids had to rely on fish more often, and eventually became (maybe not fully aquatic) but at least more aquatic than they were before. I don't think it was these big bad carcharodontosaurids coming around and bullying spinosaurids into the water. Again, yeah their aquatic capabilities are debatable, but it's clear they became more aquatic than whatever they were before after that 100mya mark.

[bright veldt]

I don’t think there’s enough to prove that to be a trend given there’s only one spinosaurid known after that 100 mya mark

[weak osprey]

(at least) 2, actually. Sigilmassasaurus, Spinosaurus, and Oxalia if it was it's own thing.

[tough isle]

So there’s been spinosaur remains found in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America right?

[weak osprey]

but yeah, maybe there were more aquatic spinosaurids before then, and maybe more terrestrial ones after then, that simply haven't been found yet.

[bright veldt]

Spinosaurus is the only one that definitely exists. Sigilmassasaurus is in the mess that I call “the spinosaurus complex” and Oxalaia is, for all intents and purposes, a dead taxa, and even if it wasn’t it’d be in the same boat as sigil

[woeful falcon]

Well surely that's the case. Knowledge of Spinosaurid evolution is rather limited.

[bright veldt]

Yes

[tough parcel]

Don't forget the North American teeth that are definitely spinosaurid

[tough isle]

Wait so what modern day animals are plesiosaurs the most closely related too?

[bright veldt]

Turtles

[weak osprey]

I mean if you really want to dig deep into it none of them definitely existed. Spinosaurus isn't even officially described anymore. But I guess this argument is less about how many there were and more about the fact that something like them had to have existed. Maybe one day we will figure these guys out.

[weak osprey]

pretty much every prehistoric marine reptile was most closely related to turtles, with the exception of mosasaurs and those weird fully aquatic crocodile things.

[frigid coral]

The more you know

[tough isle]

Mosasaurs we’re a type of monitor lizard

[bright veldt]

Yeah plesiosaurs were part of a large marine reptile lineage that exploded in diversity in the Triassic period before that diversity completely died just as quickly, with plesiosaurs being the only ones from it in the Jurassic and Cretaceous

[weak osprey]

They weren't monitor lizards, but they were closely related to them (they were branch varanids). hence why I said they were an exception.

But yeah sea turtles are the only surviving true marine reptile.

The only other fully aquatic reptile are sea snakes, but they evolved at most 8 million years ago, so they are fairly detached from the original marine reptile lineages.

[frigid coral]

depends on what you consider marine, Marine Iguanas also still exist

[rich onyx]

Huh, didn’t know that we understood Mosasaurs well enough to say that they’re varanids

[light osprey]

Mosasaurs are at the very least Toxicofera.

[chilly knot]

They aren't varanids, family inside a family doesn't work

[cinder jewel]

I don't know if you'd count them as properly marine yet. They can only spend short periods in the water and then it takes a lot of basking to hear them back up from it so they don't die. Though I guess where you draw the line is rather arbitrary

[rich onyx]

Well now I know what side of that debate you stand on 😉

[weak osprey]

Marine reptile isn't really a family, just reptiles that inhabit marine environments. When I mention "true" marine reptiles I'm referencing the original lineages that took to fully aquatic lifestyles. Marine Iquanas and gators are only semi-aquatic, so I don't really count them. Sea turtles are the only marine reptiles that actually came from the prehistoric lineages. Also I referred to Mosasaurs as "branch" varanids, not varanids but they branched off from them.

[light osprey]

[rich onyx]

I’m personally agnostic on the status of Toxicofera, other than some people sound like they are really splitting hairs over what does and does not constitute venom

[weak osprey]

Also if we are getting into mosasaur venom, the chances are they had it, but I doubt they used it for anything more than a digestive aid. Evolution doesn't like to just get rid of things, so even after the transition into aquatic creatures making their saliva-based venom useless, they probably just kept venom glands around just because. (I would like to see tylosaurus have venom in the game though, since 1. it would be cool, and 2. if metri can have venom then tylo can too.)

But yeah the only way a mosasaur would be able to use venom underwater would be to deliver it though hollow fangs like a snake does, but as of now we haven't found any hollow mosasaur fangs, so...

[stiff osprey]

Probably acted as a blood thinner, so the prey would continue bleeding and could easily be tracked through the water after the first bite

Not any kind of neurotoxin or cytotoxin like vipers and cobras

[vast narwhal]

So turtles are archosaurs?

[rich onyx]

https://tenor.com/view/that-depends-tessa-bridgerton-an-unthinkable-fate-that-is-conditional-gif-25718538

[woeful falcon]

No. And plesiosaurs aren't achosaurs.

[rich onyx]

Has that debate finally been put to rest?

[woeful falcon]

I didn't realize there was a debate

[pearl briar]

iirc rex bite force is uhh....
between 8.000-57.000 newtons iinw
(that's enough force to pulverize a diamond tho )

[frigid coral]

that is a huge range

[pearl briar]

ik
hence why i called rex "Theropod's Ultimate Lifeform"

[light osprey]

I got my infromation from a 2022 paper

[pearl briar]

may gotta have so much hate (& maybe ban) but
https://twitter.com/LordTrilobite/status/1656400225290928132

Olof Moleman (@LordTrilobite)

Get ready for a big spinosaur paper tomorrow.

Twitter · May 10, 2023, 8:46 PM

[stiff osprey]

It's not about S.aegyptiacus, don't worry

[light osprey]

On thank the lord

[compact leaf]

what is it about?

[woeful falcon]

True

[compact leaf]

it’s the paper that finally validates Montanaspinus

[stoic tinsel]

so exactly how good would baryonychines be at hunting terrestrial prey, since i know that spinosaur jaws arent very good at handling the stress from struggling prey would this be the same for the baryonychines as well or could there skulls handle the stress better

[weak osprey]

Probably hunted smaller prey and just used their hand claws to kill prey rather than relying on their jaws.

[storm heron]

I would still assume their primary weapon would be their jaws, with their hands being supporting/secondary.

[bright veldt]

I'd imagine killing terrestrial prey for spinosaurs would've been a longer and messier affair than other meat-eaters. The conical teeth and claws are meant for holding rather than cutting or ripping, so it likely depended on doing so with these weapons with its larger size. Spinosaurs in general also had bite forces that paled in comparison to their contemporaries, so that's another thing working against them as well (Suchomimus has a bite force weaker than ceratosaurus despite being four times larger as an example)

[weak osprey]

is it possible they would make use of their jaws holding design to try and suffocate prey like lions do?

[storm heron]

Well a bite to a throat to a lot of things will hurt, though it also depends on what they are trying to hold on to

[weak osprey]

Just clamping down on the esophagus hard enough to have it collapse could be a manageable task even with a weaker bite force

[little mauve]

If they could grab something in their claws they could probably eat the prey alive/kill it by driving its talons into internal organs. Similar to RPR but using the forearms

[chilly knot]

~~I've seen it "accidentally" ~~

[little mauve]

It's possible but in general a short snout is better than a long one for that kind of thing. I think that's a more likely strategy for abelisaurs than spinosaurs

[light osprey]

That sounds about right for terrestrial predation

[little mauve]

The thumb claw gets a lot of attention, similar to the toe claw on dromaeosaurs, but the entire hand is an extremely powerful weapon

[weak osprey]

My thought process is that maybe they aren't designed for hunting land prey as well, but that doesn't mean they can't do it all together. Just because its claws are meant for holding prey doesn't mean it couldn't hypothetically use them to rip into prey, it would just require more force. Sure a shorter snout would be ideal for crushing an esophagus, but even a long snout could still do it. In design they are fishers first and terrestrial predators second, so it makes sense their adaptations would be less than preferable for terrestrial predation, but it could still get the job done somehow.

[little mauve]

Oh I have no doubt they were successful terrestrial foragers, we have direct evidence of it. I think the claws were the primary weapon whether hunting aquatic or terrestrial animals

[bright veldt]

It's actually very rare for claws to be the primary killing weapon in animals. It's only really seen with birds of prey, with dromaeosaurs potentially being similar when the size difference is big enough. Aside from that they're almost always restrainers for the jaws that're used to kill.

[weak osprey]

to be fair not many animals today have claws that big

[little mauve]

I think the similarity to modern raptor talons suggests a similar function, even in large theropods

[bright veldt]

I'm not downplaying them as weapons but I often feel like it's overstated in how lethal they actually would be.

[little mauve]

They're certainly not wolverine hacking & slashing their prey, but seizing a young iguanodon and squeezing it to death in its claws/piercing it and eating alive? Absolutely

[woeful falcon]

That's how I wanna go

[little mauve]

Oof, I'll take a thagomizer to the head over that any day

[weak osprey]

Since they don't have any preferable method of killing land prey I imagine it would just use its jaws and claws to brute force it's way through the problem somehow. Since it's jaws are designed for holding, it could just grab a smaller prey item and just start raking at it's soft parts until it can disembowel it or maybe just clamp down on its neck until it's prey stops moving. They probably weren't quick and efficient killers but once they catch something it's not like they are in a big hurry.

[light osprey]

Too messy

[weak osprey]

quick and painless ankylosaur club then.

[little mauve]

Very much could see this too

[weak osprey]

That could make for a chilling scene. A baryonyx just sitting calmly as it holds onto a young iguanodon it managed to snag, clamping down on its neck with and squeezing into it with its claws as it waits for it to stop struggling.

Like its at the point where the baryonyx knows its prey isn't going anywhere, and it's just a matter of time before it dies, so it's just sitting there patiently.

[little mauve]

Pretty much exactly how I picture it. Or carrying its prey back to its den or nest, the animal slowly dying in its grip. It's a gruesome image but hey, modern raptors do it & worse

They're like some kind of medieval chimera or dragon: a giant crocodile with the legs of a ratite but hands like the feet of an eagle

[rich onyx]

Makes sense why people once thought dinosaur fossils were the bones of dragons…

[little mauve]

Definitely! I just read an interesting book about that called Fossil Legends of the First Americans

[clever sable]

Those claws aren't designed for disemboweling, they are meant for hooking in, they would not be able to rip down no matter how much force was applied because of how they were hooked and non serrated from what we can tell

[storm heron]

It may not as serrated but doesn't mean it won't be able to rip at all (it will just be harder compared to something that is more serrated). With enough force, any hook can be used to rip something.

[clever sable]

Not effectively, why are people in denial about how raptors didn't disembowel their prey

[storm heron]

Thats what I said, it will just be harder. And I thought we were talking about Spinosaurids.

[elfin pulsar]

Lol

[clever sable]

We are talking about claws in general

[light osprey]

I thinks it’s physically possible to pull a claw like that through flesh, nothing like using a cerated edge to cut through it, but you’ll end up with the same effect.

[stiff osprey]

If you try to pull the claw down from where it is buried completely (or mostly) in flesh, you will 100% break the claw

But a shallower wound (i.e. disemboweling an animal much smaller than the raptor itself), that could work

Either way, most likely the mouth would be doing anything similar to disemboweling, not the toes

[rich onyx]

As long as raptors as still terrifying murder-birds, I’m happy

[pearl briar]

what's it's saying?

[woeful falcon]

You'll find out when it drops

[trim crag]

Whats with spinosaurids having that little head crest

[woeful falcon]

They tried to get a new trend started of single nasal crests. Didn't catch on well unfortunately

[minor crescent]

I rmember hearing something about a new dromeosaur that is bigger than the utah, anyone know if this is true?

[chilly knot]

Irritator osteology (it's out)

[chilly knot]

You are probably either thinking of Bissekty dromaeosaur which is just a phalanx or Ulughbecsaurus that could be very well a carcharodontosaurid

[pearl briar]

oh ma gawd
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2023/3821-the-osteology-of-irritator

what the heeeeeeell
oh ma gawd
what's wrong with it's faeaeaeace~🎶🎵
https://twitter.com/LordTrilobite/status/1656583542720086016

Olof Moleman (@LordTrilobite)

Our redescription of the spinosaurid Irritator is out! 🧵

https://t.co/i1x7yNHZZY

Likes

206

Twitter · May 11, 2023, 8:54 AM

[pearl briar]

they're jaw opening mechanism are....
smth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwFvMPGCXn0

irri is such a big lad tho
here's his skull compared to human
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KUhU_BKCTg

[somber knoll]

How do we know claws both raptors and other dinosaurs couldn't have had serrated edges better suited for cutting through stuff?

Don't they need to have an outer layer that gets missing once fossilised?

Do we assume it couldn't have had a serrated edge because it's not currently found in nature (I think)?

[rose thorn]

The only example of a serrated claw edge as far as I can find is that of herons (specifically the cattle egret here) of which is used for grooming purposes. No other animal has this

[neat drum]

No many birds have combs

Frigatebirds, nighthawks and nightjars, and barn owls also have pectinate(combing) claws

It also seems to have evolved independantly in each group

And even better, the claw doesnt seem to provide an actual benefit, they shaved the comb off of barn owls to test and they remove the same amount of parasites regardless of the comb

[covert lintel]

i do love the Mystery Combs

[stoic tinsel]

Irritator has obligatory kinesis but theres probably some distortion that wasnt accounted for

[pearl briar]

nah he has diabetes

[snow python]

Is carch's 12,3m and 7 tons estimate still up to date?

[ancient crystal]

Trying to correct someone on Eo's size can someone tell me if this information I wrote is accurate?

"It was thought for a time to have been larger due to the larger skull, which they scaled according to trike to naturally get a larger animal. Issue is, that skulls are bad for scaling because head proportions are rarely consistent across a group of animals. After the discovery of Eo, which was originally just a head, there were vertebrea found which are much better for scaling

If you scale Eo according to the discovered vertebrea, it ends up being smaller than triceratops, just with a larger head."

[elfin pulsar]

Yeah

I think the head is bigger proportionally tho not actually bigger than trikes (don’t quote me tho, not sure)

[scenic flame]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwFvMPGCXn0

[woeful falcon]

Who woulda thought an animal whose history was filled with irritation to the point that they named it Irritator would turn out this cool

[ancient crystal]

If I had a nickle for everytime a videogame predicted an aspect of a spinosaurs anatomy, I'd have two nickles which isn't a lot but its weird it happened twice

[night bluff]

I'm sorry does that skull mean it has a pelican jaw?

[carmine badger]

I hope so

[night bluff]

Oh lawdy that's baller as hell!!🔥

[rose thorn]

Moreso they just have a roughly diamond shaped gape whenever they open their mouths, which could hold a gular pouch. Though they could be even more cursed and disconnect widely at the front like a snake’s bottom jaw

This is something that applies to all spinosaurs though

[neat drum]

this just in: semiaquatic fish eating animal has semiaquatic fish eating traits

a flexible jaw would allow fish larger than the jaw to be swallowed

[late gale]

So literally every spinosaurid would do that?

[neat drum]

baryonyx and suchomimus have similar jaw hijinks going on

[late gale]

That is so odd spinosaurids change so much in just a single year its so hard to keep up lol

[rose thorn]

From a co author of the paper

Spinosaurus casually swallowing a person whole

[rich onyx]

Spinosaurus continues to be the most protean dinosaur ever lol

[little mauve]

Awesome paper

[ancient crystal]

Poor sucho just got a remodel and its already been rendered outdated

[rose thorn]

Model isn’t even outdated, it just doesn’t have the mouth gape

[elfin pulsar]

Woah, that’s cool

[plain lava]

so did Spinosaur jaws actually split apart or just flex open wider?

[woeful falcon]

Like this⬆️ and not like this ⬇️

Cool discord didn't attach the image

Not like this.

[plain lava]

thank god

[late gale]

Imagine hypo spino somehow managed to be the most realistic spinosaur skull in gaming

[lunar copper]

it splits open like this!

[worn jasper]

I'm admittedly slightly disappointed it's probably not a snake-style split

[rose thorn]

The connective tissue between the dentary likely wasn’t like a bungee cord and allowed for extreme flexing like in snakes, which developed such to swallow prey many times larger than their heads.

The bottom jaw still likely spread at least a little to give the diamond a more rounded off shape, not python level though

[worn jasper]

I wanna draw spino like this, but I'm at work right now

[rose thorn]

It wouldn’t be quite as round as a pelican, something more like a whale

[woeful falcon]

Aesthetically pleasing.

[woeful falcon]

Don't give them ideas

[light osprey]

Still had lips

[rose thorn]

Spinosaurs aren’t even the first theropods thought to have wide mouth gapes. Hell, there are other birds outside pelicans with wide mouths

I’m sure at least one spinosaur species did something funky with its inner mouth colors and I need to see it rendered

[woeful falcon]

Luckily this is also aesthetically pleasing

[worn jasper]

I just noticed that frogmouth looks like it's pogging with its throat

[tranquil quartz]

Why can’t there be videos like for this for all the dinosaurs 😔

[amber zinc]

now hold on is isle's hyper spino accurate now?

[covert lintel]

no

[late gale]

Not even close to hyper accurate

[plain lava]

also what kind of lizard is that on the bottom?

[sudden wind]

All theropods have cranial kinesis btw. Spinosaurs cannot open their jaws without engaging it. They also have the most important one.

[plain lava]

to all of the hypo spino being accurate theorists:

also spino charge bite confirmed lol

[weak osprey]

So basically Irritator was a giant flightless pelican (awesome)

Imagine it being like modern pelicans, just trying to swallow anything it can fit in it's mouth, but while being huge.

[coral dragon]

now with that new irritator paper, i wonder what ibrahim is gonna say

[light osprey]

Ibrahim will find a way to make it more ridiculous 🗿

[ancient crystal]

How long was sarco?

[light osprey]

S Imperator?

31.2 feet

[coral dragon]

ibrahim teased stuff on twitter so maybeee

[vast narwhal]

Spinosaurus could do the thug shaker

[night bluff]

I'd be very intrigued to see a smok wawelski renditioning. That ended being classified as an archosaur over a dinosaur right?

[frigid coral]

wait so is this the big spinosaur paper someone tweeted about? if so, this is cool af

[stoic tinsel]

dinosaurs are archosaurs and no we still have no clue wtf it is

[bright veldt]

The general opinion is that Smok is close to pseudosuchia, even if we're still not sure in what way.

[tepid crystal]

what book is that from?

[little mauve]

The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert Bakker (1986)

[tepid crystal]

thank you!

[little mauve]

Yw, it's a classic. Also features this great image basically saying exactly what Witton (2023) did re: theropod lips

Full of gold though, way ahead of its time

[stiff osprey]

For those interested, yes the new Irritator paper does suggest Spinosaurus could swallow a person whole

[heady thunder]

Vore spino.

[tough parcel]

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO, MY DREAM ENABLED

[light osprey]

Now we just need more paleoart of lipped Spinosaurids

[little mauve]

Indeed, I believe the new paper has one 🤔

[chilly knot]

I wish a spinosaurus would do that to me

[worn jasper]

Get held in its mouth like a hatchling

[stiff osprey]

Hold human gentle like hamburger

[sturdy reef]

Quick question was Baryonyx able to swim? I know it’s kinda stupid since it was a Piscivore

[bright veldt]

Most animals are capable of swimming, and I don't think it's that controversial to suggest spinosaurs would've been good swimmers, aquatic or not.

[stiff osprey]

Yes, it swam about as well as any other theropod

[jagged trellis]

i mean it could probably swim, the question is if it was good, which it prolly was

[sturdy reef]

Yeah I phrased it wrong. I meant to ask was it a good swimmer

[bright veldt]

There is the debate on whether spinosaurs were semi-aquatic or not, but aside from that, it's an animal that spends a lot of time around water and primarily hunts aquatic prey. Them being good swimmers is a logical conclusion to this.

[neat drum]

It likely swam excellently

Just no better than any other theropod, because all theropods are well designed for swimming, with those powerful legs attached to muscles in their tail n whatnot

[night bluff]

Spinosaurus is such an interesting dino. Also thanks Scanova, i meant pseudosuchid not archosaur when mentioning the smok. Just had that word on the brain.

[frigid coral]

heres like the only things we know for 100% with spinosaurus (or whatever the kem kem spinosaurid is):

• It 100% ate fish
• It had a paddle tail
• It had hooked claws
• There's some remains of a spinosaurid

and that the species is still valid and most material likely belongs to whatever the spinosaurid is (not 100% but currently seems to be agreed upon)

[sudden wind]

I wouldn't really say that Spinosaurus claws were hooked unlike those of Baryonyx or Suchomimus.
The tail didn't either function much like a paddle but the shape potentially could be similar to that of salamanders but wouldn't nearly be as efficient. Would may be more like that of a Hydrosaurus or basilisk.

[frigid coral]

thats why im not saying it functioned as a paddle just that its shaped like one
the claws are still relatively hooked, but of course not as much as its relatives

[weak osprey]

If spinosaurus is a chimera, it's likely just a chimera of the same animal just at different growth stages. Hence the odd proportions of it.

Not saying it wasn't a weirdly built animal, but it's very likely that some of it's weirdness is a result of this.

[vocal breach]

thats what im thinking. Also, if spino could possibly swallow a person whole, what about the other 2 big boys

[bright veldt]

Spinosaurus is not a chimera at all. There's been no evidence of that anywhere. The issue is more that there's a lot of specimens that are just called spinosaurus due to just being spinosaur remains from the same place and time, rather than any actual evidence they're the same (like material overlap in different specimens).

I'd be more on board with just assuming they're the same personally, but there's numerous inconsistencies that suggest a lot of specimens are not from the same species/genus. There's also been studies coming out suggesting that multiple spinosaur species coexisting probably isn't that unusual ("Riparovenator" and "Ceratosuchops", they're both under the same genus now but I forgot which name has stuck)

[vocal breach]

gigas skull is taller in comparison to rexes, correct?

[weak osprey]

I think riparovenator stuck

[frigid coral]

in that case, the CollectA Ceratosuchops has the improper name now

[weak osprey]

Not finding anything on the genus name, but the clade name is Ceratosuchopsini, so it might be the other way around

[bright veldt]

Maybe I'm wrong and the two genera weren't merged at all. I can't find any info on it. Ceratosuchopsini is kind of an arbtirary tribe anyways.

[weak osprey]

Yeah I can't find anything supporting that, which is odd because I thought I heard that they had been merged as well. So many spinosaurids being reclassified and merged its gets confusing.

Barely any material on them, but the material we have suggests they were different animals.

[sudden wind]

The neotype is a single specimen. However, we have multiple individuals attributed to "Spinosaurus".

[pearl briar]

atm carcha is 12.2m and 8.2tons using randoms ref but we must wait till the newest skeletal is done and public after the model is done

[stuck chasm]

@manic gladeThis channel is for the discussion of past and present paleontological discoveries, scientific news, and depictions of prehistoric creatures in media in relation to palaeontology. If you are having difficulties running the game please direct them to one of our appropriate help channels, in this case #mobile-help.

[clever sable]

Wasn't it found that spinosaurus was just an average swimmer possibly being below average due to it's sail making turning in the water exceedingly difficult?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9711522/ this is the study for anyone who hasn't read it

[stiff osprey]

it's an average swimmer for dinosaurs, who are almost all good swimmers to begin with

Pretty bad at diving though

[compact leaf]

the only dinosaurs I can think of that aren’t really good at swimming are the ankylosaurs, and it’s because they’re dense enough that they sink

[tough parcel]

https://twitter.com/PrimevalArtist/status/1655618975760363551?s=20

Falcon9 (Commissions Open!) (@PrimevalArtist)

The Texan Butcher itself, Acrocanthosaurus! Based on a new skeletal by Beagliam, not Franoys hence the differences. Fun fact about a different Fran (Acro), they have a bite mark on their upper jaw indicating an attack from a large croc, bigger than any discovered! (In the area)

Likes

404

Twitter · May 8, 2023, 5:01 PM

I never posted it here apparently so ba bam

God I hate this slowmode

[cobalt pier]

wait what the hell happened with spinosaurid jaws overnight

[stiff osprey]

Envision the only reason we know a giant croc existed in this time and place being that said giant croc bit the [frick] out of your face.

That is what being Acrocanthosaurus is like

[cobalt pier]

why the skull emoji im unironically simply asking

[tough parcel]

https://twitter.com/JoschuaKnuppe/status/1656770352330993664?s=20

There's a joint/hinge in the lower jaw of Irritator (and likely others) that allowed the jaw to split open (become wider, think pelican or monitor lizard)

Also the 💀 emote cause I didn't have any wide emote

Joschua Knüppe (@JoschuaKnuppe)

Based on direct communication with @LordTrilobite
Very cool stuff, you all better stop harassing authors!

Likes

662

Twitter · May 11, 2023, 9:16 PM

[cobalt pier]

oh damn thats dope, these split jaw memes are going nuts rn lmfao, thanks for the info

[bright veldt]

I personally have issues with that study, and I feel like we're missing something with spinosaurus in general.

[cinder jewel]

Well duh we haven't found the wings yet

[clever sable]

Apparently they had incredibly flexible jaws but they didn't have pelican mouths like most people are saying because their bottom jaw was fused, it probably functioned to allow it to swallow fish wider than the rear section of it's jaw, similar to loons and other fish eating birds

[clever sable]

The study is insanely thorough, possibly the most thorough study on a theropod

[bright veldt]

press x to doubt

[clever sable]

The placement of the nostrils is also indicative of a wading lifestyle, they are far up in the skull allowing the sensory organs to be placed underwater while still being able to breath out of the nostrils

[clever sable]

What is your issue with the study? It's super thorough with good methodology

[bright veldt]

That's not unique to wading animals. I'm skeptical because of how it tries to tell me that spinosaurus was a preddy shoddy swimmer despite spending its entire life around water.

[clever sable]

Just that something lives by water doesn't mean that it's automatically a good swimmer

[bright veldt]

The entirety of the spinosaurus lifestyle debate has felt like a dong-measuring contest between 2 parties of paleontologists that are both probably incorrect.

[cobalt pier]

this convo seems like a dong measuring contest

[clever sable]

At least they can both agree it didn't live like the JP3 spino

[light osprey]

Is the Scott Hartman Utahraptor skeletal still accurate?

[bright veldt]

Yes

[vocal breach]

this guy?

[bright veldt]

Yes

[vocal breach]

how about this Achillobator

[junior dawn]

that achillo uses the same model as the utah but with some tweaks iirc, so it has utah proportions

not the best achillo, but you cant do much more with it so

[light osprey]

Then again Achillobator is more fragmentary so any design is going to be somewhat derivative of Utahraptor. But iirc, the leg bones are supposed to be more gracile, while having a more robust coracoid (?)

[tiny holly]

I just can't get behind wader spino because why on earth would it evolve to be a worse wader. The majority of spinosaurids have long legs which are great for wading, they reduce drag and making walking through shallow water a lot easier. Spinosaurus has very short stocky legs, these are awful for wading (I challenge you to find me a single extant wading animal with short legs) but they're great for swimming. I think a far more likely solution that still satisfies stuff like the nostril placement is it simply swam on the surface most of the time

I am begging proponents of wader spino to actually discuss spino's leg length

[stiff osprey]

The "one of the most thorough studies on any theropod" thing is just false as well. It's about as detailed as the other papers

[novel atlas]

https://twitter.com/oroti0/status/1656822038009614337?t=0aYLBB-QDNK8LUU5kiIa9A&s=19

ヤマタノオロチ (@oroti0)

https://t.co/glQXnNrveo

Likes

205

Twitter · May 12, 2023, 12:42 AM

[stiff osprey]

Lmao I just now noticed the shin godzilla gills and spines

[pearl briar]

any pterosaur discoveries in hell creek?
quetz? ptera?

[tiny holly]

There is an indeterminate azhdarchid, potentially quetzalcoatlus but it's not really enough to actually place it, and another indeterminate pterosaur, a pteranodontid iirc

[minor crescent]

So this has been confusing me for a long time, what is the difference between troodons and raptors? As in a general species sense, not necessarily one specific family

[pearl briar]

spino & paralititan
too humid for kem kem groups?

[ripe wedge]

https://youtu.be/5n1_vkyL4XI

[tiny holly]

I assume you mean dromaeosaurs, as raptors is a term that can and is used for both them and troodontids. From what I know dromies are usually (though not always) more robust while troodontids are more gracile. One of the pretty big differences is troodontids have serrated teeth, dromies don't. There's also something with the tails, dromies had bony extensions that troodontids lack.

[pearl briar]

troodontids generally have smaller teeth, longer necks and legs, smaller toe claws and wings, and larger eyes

[storm heron]

Dromaeosaurids don’t have serrated teeth?

[tiny holly]

Not like troodontid teeth, they're largely all pretty subtle or have no serration at all. Compare that to troodontid teeth which are pretty wacky.

[hollow pendant]

Pelican.

[light osprey]

I’m pretty sure there’s another study coming?

[pearl briar]

oh yeah a question based on the new irritator paper: Do spinosaurs have the same sorta deal where they can’t open their mouth and can only close it
Like they only have muscles to close

[heady thunder]

You mean like reverse crocs?

[fallow plank]

Crocs and other crocodilians have relative weak muscles to open their jaw,I can somewhat see how it could happen to spino but naaaa

[worn jasper]

I'm still a supporter on Orinoco Spinosaurus until someone can prove it wasn't the case. What if spino was just cruising at the surface until fish swam close enough, where it'd grab it before it can react?

[stoic tinsel]

Given the placement of its nostrils its likely going the heron route

[light osprey]

Not super indicative of any specific lifestyle.

[heady thunder]

Now what confused me about the new irritator thing, is that mouth thingy applied to all other spinosaurs or just irritator?

[stoic tinsel]

Yeah it is having nostrils higher on the skull implies it waded like a heron with its jaws in the water its really the only plausible method of feeding for spinosaurus given its not super amazing at swimming

[chilly knot]

Orinoco crocodiles are macropredators, totally capable of hunting prey large than itself just as good as most other crocodylus. Spinosaurus isnt

[light osprey]

Still possesses a lot of adaptations counter intuitive to a heron lifestyle.

[stoic tinsel]

Like?

[light osprey]

Legs? Tail? Torso?

[stoic tinsel]

What about them

[plain lava]

short legs is a pretty big glaring one, also the fact that it’s super front-heavy would just kinda cause it to fall over instead of lean down to grab a fish

[light osprey]

They can be interpersonal as aquatically adapted

[covert lintel]

that specific adaptation doesn't imply it waded, it only implies it benefitted from being able to keep its jaws in the water without worrying about drowning, which isn't mutually exclusive with fishing while floating on the water's surface

[elfin pulsar]

Shorty legs is like, the antithesis to wading

[heady thunder]

Doesnt spino being just, huge, make the short legs issue less of an issue?

[plain lava]

not really, it makes it more awkward when we try to imagine how it even stood or moved around

[elfin pulsar]

With how short the legs are it’s pretty doubtful

[stoic tinsel]

With how it's weight is distributed it makes it a bit hard to tell how the thing moved

[trim crag]

my personal theory is that spinosaurus stood on 2 legs and it had a really thick tail and it tail dragged like a retro dinosaur

[light osprey]

It’s a biped

[stoic tinsel]

Didn't say it wasnt

[pearl briar]

ffs

[plain lava]

:0 my Ibrahim Spino meme got deleted

one of the Alderons got me for posting Undertale music

[ornate inlet]

Please be polite and respectful towards other members. Refer to our #rules

[rich onyx]

Can someone explain to me why Mallon decided to exclude Eotriceratops from Chasmosaurinae in their analysis? Everyone else seems pretty confident that Eotriceratops is a triceratopsin

[heady thunder]

Probably forgor

[rich onyx]

Hang on, something about decreased analytical resolution when they included it?

[snow python]

Is Carch. Iguidensis still valid?

[rich onyx]

As far as I know, yes

[sage cave]

Opinions?

[compact leaf]

well it definitely didn’t have the split jaw we know spinosaurids didn’t have it, it’s not as weird of a thing as he’s making it out to be we see it in a lot of modern animals that eat fish

[rich onyx]

They could flex, that’s not the same as unhinging. Spinosaurids continue to be the gift that keeps on giving though

[sage cave]

So more like a pelican and less like the thing on the isle yeah?

[compact leaf]

yeah more like a lot of fish eating birds or monitor lizards

[woeful falcon]

https://twitter.com/oroti0/status/1656822038009614337?t=0aYLBB-QDNK8LUU5kiIa9A&s=19

ヤマタノオロチ (@oroti0)

https://t.co/glQXnNrveo

Likes

1564

Retweets

259

Twitter · May 12, 2023, 12:42 AM

[vast narwhal]

Why are people saying spinosaurids had snake jaws

[mossy swan]

Because of this @vast narwhal

[clever sable]

Did you read the new study? They probably didn't have jaws like the hypo giga from the isle but they probably did have jaws that would spread apart in the back to allow them to swallow extremely large fish, I didn't do a very good job of explaining it tbh

[vast narwhal]

No I didn't read it, I just got on here and all I've been seeing is spinosaurs the isle jaws, do you have link?

[clever sable]

Well the isle jaw spino is extremely exaggerated

[neat drum]

The flex in the jaw isnt even weird or rare, just neat to find

Just means spinosaurids could uh, yanno, swallow fish with their rather narrow jaws, and likely had stretchy throats

[torn sail]

Losing my mind over the fact how ceteceans got their Nose Veins behind their brains because it normally goes under it???

Like how??????

[woeful falcon]

You see, the blowhole is the nose

I have no actual idea but I assume its in relation to that

[torn sail]

Yes I am aware of that but that still doesn't explain how they moved their whole respiratory system from inside their mouth to behind their head

[neat drum]

Likely an adaptation to being aquatic and the way baleen whales feed

[torn sail]

Yeah but the problem is like there is a skull there? You can't just change where it is

[cloud dagger]

No one is bossing around whales they did what they wanted lol

[torn sail]

Yeah but that still doesn't explain how it got to that point

[woeful falcon]

Evolution baby

[torn sail]

Ok so from what I could find, they have some weird skulls but nothing about how it came to that point

[little mauve]

The nasal opening started in the usual position in ambulocetids then just moved further back bit by bit

[woeful falcon]

Look at it go

[little mauve]

"Wheeeeeee!" - The nose

[woeful falcon]

No

[torn sail]

That's horrifying

[light osprey]

That second image is not it.

[ripe wedge]

it’s just a pelican style yawn not a bite

[woeful falcon]

And irritator is not a pelican

[ripe wedge]

nah but the way the jaw flex’s is the same

[woeful falcon]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I thought to go that far open, irritator would need to break its jaw to do a pelican yawn as illustrated

[light osprey]

Makes sense

[ripe wedge]

it mostly depends on the flex of the lower mandible
if the flex amount is low not really possible yeah
if the flex amount is high it would be possible

[woeful falcon]

The author(s), at least in comments I've seen have generally steered away from pelican and snake comparisons in favor of others from what I've seen which is why I figured

[ripe wedge]

even if you go very conservative numbers and stick to monitor lizard levels, they go wide

[woeful falcon]

But I also just immediately ruled it as a case of classic case of paleo artist twitter seeing something and saying "hey what if I took this, and then exaggerated it. Holy frick that's genius it looks like a pelican and therefore is"

[ripe wedge]

that is also a pretty solid possibility

[tough parcel]

Yea, no that is...way too big I think lmao

[ripe wedge]

i hope we get a follow up paper focused on the tendons and lower mandible flexibly of spinosaurids

[light osprey]

No chance they were capable of that, definitely a less exaggerated feature.

[small geyser]

Maybe cormorant would be a better comparison.

[ripe wedge]

yeah probably

that jaw does really want to go wide either way https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5n1_vkyL4XI&feature=youtu.be

[woeful falcon]

Okay yeah had to look at the paper again to make sure

"C, the maximum opening angle of around 40° (in wider angles, the raised posterolateral margin of the glenoid fossa hits the quadrate)"

[hollow pendant]

This is getting scary and cool because there’s a lot of evidence that this is true

[woeful falcon]

That what is true

[weak osprey]

I mean it is true, they would literally have been unable to open their jaws without them expanding due to their jaw hinge structure

[neat drum]

Cormorant is a valid comparison here, modestly wide to allow jaws to open and swallow prey

[sudden wind]

This thing creates so much debate.

As the whole jaw isn't conserved.

Then there also is the problem that we lack most of the soft tissues around that would potentially stiffen more the jaws.

[woeful falcon]

I just dislike the reason why, or what I take to be the reason

Paleo artist 1: "hey I just did a life restoration of Irritator opening its mouth to the approximate maximum of 40°, displaying its cranial kinesis"

Paleo artist 34: "I heard 90° and make it a pelican. Dinosaurs get shrinkwrapped so I'm gonna make them obese and overly feathered later"

[clever sable]

Well shrinkwrapping is a pretty big issue

[woeful falcon]

Yeah like 15 years ago excluding the franchise that barely has what you can call a dinosaur now. But even then my comment wasn't about shrink wrapping, it was just describing the brand of paleo artist that does wacky zany stuff like so

[sudden wind]

People usually forget that reptiles do not store fat as well as mammals do. After this, you end up with blob looking creatures.

Then for the feather thing that's mostly because of old bad tropes and misunderstanding from the general public.

[woeful falcon]

And its for fun I get that. But then you result in the trends like neeco's describing and god forbid "Cousin of T-Rex was a pelican dino" headlines lol. But that is mixing topics

[sudden wind]

Here is one of the trend I dislike the most : thick necked Polycotylidaes. We do have soft tissue preservation and know well enough of Plesiosaur anatomy that we can assume the neck wasn't a fat storage location. The cervical are not short and broad, they are still quite flexible. Those were still very capable of 3D movements unlike those of cetaceans and Ichthyosaurs which is why they got such low neck mobility.

[white matrix]

Difference between long and short necked kronosaurus like plesiosaurs?

[hollow pendant]

Those things might of acted like dolphins

[white matrix]

It does look like a dolphin 🐬

[hollow pendant]

Mosasaurs and other marine reptiles might if had the same skin type as whales

[sudden wind]

Yes, as active oceanic predators that had high sociality capable of high mobility. Otherwise, they proportionally able to take down much larger preys than similarly sized dolphin. We got Hesperonithid remains in their guts.

[hollow pendant]

I bet nothing would change if we replaced mammals with dinosaurs

Dinosaurs can be endangered by humans and some of the biggest ones can get extinct but smaller ones survive, like the mammoth going extinct but the elephant lives on

[jagged trellis]

dunno bout it seeing entirely different reproduction styles and niches for the most part( also insert humans are mammals joke here)

[sudden wind]

No, Mosasaur skin was still scaly. However, those were highly reduced. It also is the case in Plesiosaurs. The scales are extremely small.
However, Ichthyosaur and Thalattosuchians skin were scaleless, similarly to cetaceans.

[hollow pendant]

Yeah since they are related to monitor lizards just remembered

[sudden wind]

All reptiles have scales. Some groups just lost them through their oceanic colonization.

[clever sable]

Birds don't have scales

[hollow pendant]

Yes they do

[clever sable]

Not modern birds, feathers are not a type of scale

[hollow pendant]

On their feet there are scale plates

[clever sable]

That's actually a good point

[white matrix]

Those are called scutes, right?

[hollow pendant]

I guess so, but the cassowary is the only one with actual dinosaur feet

[white matrix]

Oh yes, cassowary is scary. It makes sounds like rex would make (only 10x louder), yes?

[hollow pendant]

I never heard a cassowary make a sound before but I’d imagine it would be disturbing

[white matrix]

https://youtu.be/iy-9Z2KrjsY

[clever sable]

We don't really know how a rex would sound because the nasal passage way study for making noise isn't as reliable anymore because we now know dinosaurs had a larynx which plays a big part in making noise

[hollow pendant]

The most dinosaur like features that all birds have are their legs, if you look at them and think of a dino it becomes a dino

[woeful falcon]

Perhaps true BUT you need an extinction of dinosaurs to have humans

[white matrix]

Not all had a larynx, and it was found on some ankylosaurid. Not very reliable I would say.

[clever sable]

Well judging by how birds are therapods and have a larynx and even non therapod dinosaurs had a larynx it's pretty safe to assume that therapods had a larynx

[sudden wind]

They do. Bird feathers are actually derived scales. However, if we apply the same, mammal hairs also are. But you are right that under their coat, they are scale-less.

They also have some plates on their feet that we call "scutes". We also see analogous structures in crocodylians. However, bird and crocodile scutes are not the same structures : bird evolved their scutes back from feathers. The two groups developed those features independently (like their lipless condition which are very different btw).

[woeful falcon]

A return to form if you will

[frigid coral]

psst, sorry to butt in but is the head anatomy for the protoceratops okay/passable?

I did them all with 0 reference besides memory, thus why I’m asking to make sure it isn’t horrible

[little mauve]

You might want to give the snout a bit more of an arched look

[bright veldt]

It depends on the thalattosuchians, and it's an interesting divide

teleosaurs are much less derived in their general characteristics, still baring crocodyliform scales, along with maintaining some terrestrial capabilities and egg laying

vs metriorhynchiods that lost the traditional scaling, are entirely aquatic, and give birth to live young

Teleosaur vs Metriorynchiod

[stiff osprey]

bro came in with tha multiview

[frigid coral]

Thank you both!

[weak osprey]

that proto is JACKED

[frigid coral]

he’s just big boned

[blazing surge]

Hola

Una consulta alguien sabe cómo hacer la sugerencia de amigos ?

[frigid coral]

got that muscle from playing solitaire

[white matrix]

#español

[pearl briar]

any described weight for mapu?
or undescribed?

[clever sable]

Not sure, I think it's slightly smaller than pre upsize giga, pretty sure it's around 8 tons? I'm probably wrong, feel free to correct me

[tough isle]

When the hypo spino is historically accurate 💀

[woeful falcon]

It ain't

[clever sable]

It's not

[tough isle]

source to back that up?

[clever sable]

@tough isle the top one is what is actually proposed in the paper

It's bottom jaw was partially fused so even though it's only partial it still wouldn't allow hypo spino

[vocal breach]

what if I hit his jaw with a sledgegammer? What you gonna do about that?

[clever sable]

Uh idk

[woeful falcon]

Well he's dead so. I wouldn't recommend it still.

[pearl briar]

can theropods do "T pose"?

[woeful falcon]

What's T pose mean here because its in quotes

[pearl briar]

ordinary t pose
like intimidating opponent or smth like that
just like a t posing anteater/red panda

[woeful falcon]

googles

Not like that no

[north plinth]

How reliable are the current size estimates for the dentary specimen of Giganotosaurus? I'm pretty skeptical, myself, given that they are essentially sizing up the animal's weight and proportions to match that of the more complete holotype using only a jawbone

Seems unreliable at best and misleading at worst, given how many awesomebros are taking this information as undisputed gospel. I guess I mean to say that people should take these size estimates with a grain of salt instead of trying so hard to make their favorite therapod look like the biggest and baddest there ever was...

[woeful falcon]

Might have read this already but here's the blogpost regarding it, going into details about it their estimate and methods
https://www.thecodontia.com/blog/the-largest-theropod-dinosaur-known-to-science

Should be noted that the author, Dan Folkes, also detests the awesomebros taking it as gospel and when writing the post made sure to lead with a disclaimer in regards to estimates varying from author to author among other stuff.

Though personally I feel he should have been able to anticipate this lol. That's just me though. People just tunnel vision to the number

If you want to skip to the important part:

"recently I was in contact with Omar Lagarda González (aka Darknix), who was contacted with measurements of the jaw of the referred specimen. This allows us to use a far more reliable estimate, being the length of the dentary with respect to the number of dental alveoli, which varies less among members of the same species: this gives us a size difference of around 6.6% between the two specimens"

[north plinth]

True that, technically if others used the same methods Folkes used for the Giga dentary specimen on, say, incredibly fragmentary Tyrannosaurus or Spinosaurus specimens, etc etc we could easily get some pretty absurdly high size estimates that exceed current approximations of these animals which seems to happen more often than not. Take the 20 tonne Spino from almost 20 years ago

[pearl briar]

dentary giga (based on dan's recent blog) is anywhere from uhh....
13.5 meters long & 10.4 tons

[clever sable]

Yeah but Dan folkes is a reputable source

[woeful falcon]

Was the 20 tonne spino based on dentary length scaling

20 years ago spino was also a very different beast mind you

[north plinth]

I believe there were other factors that led to that weight estimate, but it's the same story: creating an entire animal based off fragments of fozzilized bone, essentially

[clever sable]

Giga and rex are about tied in size, on average I'm pretty sure rex was bigger but we aren't talking about average, we are talking about the largest members, while yes the dentary giga specimen is harder to calculate the size of and has a higher margin of error it's still a reliable estimate

[north plinth]

I'm still skeptical, but that's to be expected. These are educated guesses that are just as likely to be correct as they are wrong.

[clever sable]

You can't just call a study inaccurate because you don't like the results, Dan is a well regarded professional while you are making speculations online without doing any calculations

[woeful falcon]

Can't boil down every case like that. If length of dentary is something that varies less among members of the same species, that makes the margin of error smaller and it's more reliable. This would be the same for rex and spino. Hell Spinosaurus is a hotchpotch of a variety of fragmentary specimens some specimens are just flat out destroyed. Are they all just unreliable for scaling by this logic then?

[clever sable]

Are you talking to me?

[woeful falcon]

Was hard for me to not respond with some contrived bs, but no I'm not lol.

[north plinth]

Folkes himself said to take the results with a grain of salt. I'm just taking him at his word

[woeful falcon]

You asked how reliable they were. Here's your answer.

[clever sable]

He didn't say take it with a grain of salt lmao, he said measuring something off of dentary has a higher Margin of error than a large amount of material, he never once said take it with a grain of salt

[north plinth]

Besides, being skeptical isn't saying he's surely wrong. But he's working with limited resources to come up with these. It would be wrong to accept these results as absolute fact until we have more specimens or can at least study in greater detail the ones we do have

[woeful falcon]

An estimate is an estimate.

[north plinth]

I didn't quote him saying that, but it looks like you assumed that I did

[clever sable]

Also, the "who is bigger" and the "who would win in a fight" debates are absolutely exhausting, size and combat ability aren't the only things that creatures have that makes them cool

[woeful falcon]

Also I think its just two specimens, holotype and dentary

[clever sable]

Taking something with a grain of salt and having a higher Margin of error are very different so him saying that it has a higher Margin of error doesn't mean that you should take it with a grain of salt

[woeful falcon]

Truthfully I don't think the target of criticism should be the estimate but rather those who look at the estimate as the end all be all.

[clever sable]

Some estimates deserve criticism, especially the 5 meter puru estimate because that's just simply illogical, to be fair it was made a long time ago but it's still ridiculous someone came up with a 5 meter estimate for puru

[north plinth]

I didn't intend for this to be a debate, so we're clear. I understand, however, that sharing my views could be met with criticism depending on the person responding. I'm not discrediting Folkes, but I'm not comfortable with his findings(no matter how credible) until more information is provided. If that does make me seem close minded, then so be it.

[woeful falcon]

Gotta find more bones

[north plinth]

Also, apologies if I came across as condescending or critical, I'm not claiming to know better. In fact, I believe we don't know enough which is my point

[woeful falcon]

I'm not here to be critical of you though personally, I just wanted to explain the method and reliability.

[clever sable]

Uhm akchually fossils are no longer actual bones

[north plinth]

Fozzilized bone*

[clever sable]

Much better (yes I'm a nerd)

[north plinth]

And yeah, definitely need to uncover more specimens of Giga and even other large therapods to know for sure. Speculating is part of the fun, at least until awesomebros enter the room.

[clever sable]

JP3 SPINO OH MY GOD!!!!! IT'S SO CEWL!! I HEARD IT WAS BLUE WHALE SIZED AND COULD KILL A T REX WITH A FLICK OF IT'S FINGER -everyone who unironically likes Jurassic fight club

[woeful falcon]

Personally, one thing I find wasn't stressed enough was the small sample size. Though it is more likely to uncover animals of average size, which would indicate Giganotosaurus were larger on average compared to Tyrannosaurus, two individuals is a poor sample size for a population as I see it, not even accounting for the time Giganotosaurus as a species would have existed either.

[north plinth]

Yup, exactly what I mean. These animals are nothing but kaiju for many, only meant to be paired against one another to fight to the death to see who's the "ultimate predator"

[woeful falcon]

Simply put, I wouldn't view it as a sample reflective of an animal's population without more specimens that can thus paint a better picture. Rather just, an average between two individuals

[clever sable]

It's so dumb, acro and giga are my favorite dinosaurs, could they beat rex in a fight? Probably not, do I care if they can? Not at all because it doesn't matter

[north plinth]

Finding the average based on two specimens, definitely not the ideal way to calculate the size ranges for this animal. That being said, they were friggin' huge regardless.

[tough isle]

I am a certified megalosaurid enjoyer 🪪

[clever sable]

The most annoying thing ever is when people refuse to portray dinos with feathers because they think it "isn't scary" like, a 50 foot iguana isn't scary either so your argument is pointless

[north plinth]

Feeling is mutual. Personally, I'm an abelisaurid enjoyer and don't care if they couldn't reach the same sizes as Carchardontosaurids or Tyrannosaurids. They're just cool, to put it bluntly

[woeful falcon]

Megalosaurids are cool

[tough isle]

I like megalosaurids because their head shape and a megalosaurid is one of the only dinosaurs ever discovered in my country

[north plinth]

Similar to fur on animals. Like a grizzly bear may be fluffy but it could body most terrestrial animals with ease.

[woeful falcon]

I love me some abelisaurids. My boi Ekrixinatosaurus is a fave. And ofc prehistoric planet got me swooning over their Raja. More than any dinosaur it looks real

[woeful falcon]

What dinosaurs does your country bless us with, if I may ask

[light osprey]

Something about their Qianzhousaurus for me makes it the best. To each their own

[pearl briar]

meanwhile, beelzebufo:

[tough isle]

Scelidosaurus and megalosaurus

[clever sable]

Acro will always be my favorite alongside giga and bruhathkayosaurus but bruhathkayosaurus is uhhhh, dubious at best so I'm not gonna officially list it as one of my favorites

[woeful falcon]

Qianzhou is a beautiful animal, they captured it wonderfully

Oooo megalo itself. First dinosaur, very nice

[light osprey]

My favorite wastebasket taxon 🔥

[north plinth]

Never heard of it. Is it a Carnosaur?

[tough isle]

yeah Ireland doesn't have many rocks from the Mesozoic

[woeful falcon]

Bruha? Sauropod

[north plinth]

Ah, got it. Speaking of sauropods, Alamosaurus needs more love.

[clever sable]

It was originally identified as one but then it was considered a sauropod, then it was considered a tree, now it's considered a possibly sauropod that got carnosaur fossils mixed in with it

[woeful falcon]

Glaciers took whatever would have lived in my state. No dinosaurs for me!

[clever sable]

Granite took dinosaurs from me because new Hampshire, yay I guess

[tough isle]

In Ireland it's mostly just megafauna that they find. I do currently reside in the Canadian province where the largest tyrannosaurus so far has been found

[clever sable]

Ew alamosaurus, that thing is weird

[bright veldt]

Mostly in origins, the animal itself is pretty standard titanosaur, even if it's in the top 5 largest land animals

[light osprey]

Alamosaurus is a pretty standard looking Titanosaur

[woeful falcon]

We need more from that whole side of the country honestly. Drypto can't carry the Appalachian dinosaurs by itself

[tough isle]

you got that long armed tyrannosaur thingy

[bright veldt]

I mean you got Hadrosaurus itself, along with Deinosuchus

Dilophosaurus is also pretty prominent in the Northeast, even if not as famously known over there as it is in Kayenta

[tough isle]

I was born in Ireland where only megalosaurus and that other one has ever been found and Saskatchewan where I live now, they've only found tyrannosaurus, triceratops, edmontosaurus and anzu

[clever sable]

Purussaurus > deinosuchus

[bright veldt]

Eh Barinasuchus has firmly stole my heart in terms of Cenozoic crocs from that region'

[light osprey]

I think Sauroposeidon was found where I used to live in the United States. Texas iirc?

[tough isle]

I wonder if the Irish megalosaurus was a unionist or a republican...

[clever sable]

I like puru because turtle shell go crunch

[bright veldt]

Deinosuchus's favorite prey was marine turtles sooooooo...

[clever sable]

Why do giant crocs like bullying turtles lmao

[tough isle]

deinosuchus is just a large gator

[clever sable]

It has some pretty significant differences in the morphology of the skull

[woeful falcon]

Turtle soup num num

[tough isle]

Actually I'm pretty sure they found a dinosaur not far from my gf's reservation a few years ago

[clever sable]

Puru is just great, I love it just because

Art of Puru in Florida (not mine)

I don't care if it's not accurately sized, I'm not sure what size estimate this is based on but I love how fat it is

[tough isle]

branta canadensis is definitely my least favorite dinosaur

[woeful falcon]

I think the size estimate they went for was just "big"

[clever sable]

Given how large purus skull is that's more reasonable than literally 5 meters like this one guy decided it was while doing literally no research and looking at a Google image of a puru skull with no size reference by it and decided it was obviously 5 meters

[woeful falcon]

You sure it wasn't just a different species of puru

[north plinth]

For a second I thought that this image was real

Just another day in Florida, from an outsider's view

[sudden wind]

Forgot about teleosaurs.

[somber knoll]

How realistic is it that speed Deinonychus has those feathers at the back of the head? Is there any proof of such feather attachments in any dromeaosaurids or is it a hypothesis based on some modern birds?

[covert lintel]

afaik there's no direct proof of it, but it's not all that far-fetched either. it's pretty reasonable speculation

[pearl briar]

rex size info (remastered)

[chilly knot]

~8.8t (I told u already, but for the sake of mapusaurus propaganda)

[keen forum]

isn't the largest rex 12.4?

[keen forum]

on a 12.3m mapu? even giga at 12.5-12.6 is about 8.4-8.5tons

[pearl briar]

uhhh 12.3 based on dan's recent blog (but feel free to cmiiw)

[keen forum]

yeah slightly smaller than sue, https://twitter.com/Randomdinos01/status/1292809029346119682

Henry (@Randomdinos01)

Looking further into the skull material made me update the #Tyrannosaurus and #Albertosaurus reconstructions, with some minor postcranial changes on the side. Also, the very important anatomical difference that Sue is now walking the other way. #Theropod #Dinosaurs #NorthAmerica

Likes

253

Twitter · Aug 10, 2020, 1:04 PM

[pearl briar]

wait...
don't u mean scotty is shorter than sue?

[keen forum]

yeah scotty is shorter ( smaller ) than sue and Falcon's rex is based on Random's sue

[pearl briar]

hmm i see

but weight is still 8-10.4 tons right?

[light osprey]

She reigns supreme 🫡

[heady thunder]

Wait isnt Scotty the biggest?

[pearl briar]

scotty is still the biggest but sue is longer

[keen forum]

length wise no weight yes, rex is like 8.8 - 11.6tons iirc

[pearl briar]

like quetz & hatz case (hatz is shorter than quetz but more heavier than quetz)

[keen forum]

but if u use dan it's 10.4tons

[ocean ivy]

Females and males would both have different bone structures, right? ...

[pearl briar]

so just take it with grain of salt

[pearl briar]

iirc female rex's hip are bigger but they're still same size (feel free to cmiiw)

[ocean ivy]

And the hips are bigger for reproduction I assume

[heady thunder]

Are there any carnivorous quadrupedal dinosaurs?

[pearl briar]

no, all carnivores dinosaurs are bipedals
if it's carnivores but quadruped, no it's not a dinosaur

[heady thunder]

Hmm, seems that theropods were just that good.

[north plinth]

The Giga dentary specimen. Kinda surprised how a whole animal's size and weight was calculated off of just this. Oh well, wish we had more to go on.

[ocean ivy]

I always found the bone structure of a Dilophosaurus fascinating.

[tough parcel]

No, there’s no way to differentiate gender because we don’t have a baseline

[keen forum]

There seems to be no real difference between males and females in rex

[compact leaf]

if we see medullary bone we can be sure it’s a female but it still doesn’t give us a baseline, any individual without it could still be a female it just wasn’t developing the bone at the time

[tranquil quartz]

Are iguandontids considered to be hadrosaurs, or are they just two different families under the same clade?

[noble steeple]

Correct be in im wrong, but isnt branta just a goose

[tough isle]

Yes

[noble steeple]

theyre also my least favorite then

[light osprey]

They are both Ornithipods, but I think hadrosauroidae is not within the family of Iguanodontia

[woeful falcon]

Hadrosauroidea is in Iguanodontia yes. But Iguanodotia's a large clade. Iguanotontids, or at least what is traditionally seen as Iguanodontids, don't make it into hadrosauroidea. Hadrosaurids are even further down into hadrosauroidea.

[clever sable]

Size is measured in mass which makes Scotty bigger

[woeful falcon]

.

What is their weight difference again anyway, last I checked it was so negligable it's barely worth calling one bigger than the other when lunch could set one over

[keen forum]

"Size is determined by the process of comparing or measuring objects, which results in the determination of the magnitude of a quantity, such as length or mass, relative to a unit of measurement." if they were talking about weight scotty is the LARGEST but BIGGEST is sue in length and possibly height

[keen forum]

it's like a difference of like 300kgs iirc, depending on the recon

[clever sable]

For animals size is measured in mass, more people need to understand this common misconception

[woeful falcon]

KM knows it well I assure you

[rich onyx]

I'm curious if Alderon is giving us both Deinonychus and Achillobaator on the basis of that cladogram that recovered Deinonychus as a Velociraptorine

[white matrix]

So uh that new irritator paper is something huh. What's your guys opinion.

[compact leaf]

it’s not all that weird just neat to find, we see it in a lot of things cormorants and monitor lizards are a good comparison

[woeful falcon]

Wrong topic. But also Deinonychus was a perk dino, it was funded by community member(s) not chosen by devs.

Irritator is cool. I really like how they restored the skull

[rich onyx]

Gotcha

[covert lintel]

unknown. we have at most Two individuals confirmed to be female (as they were preserved with medullary tissue, indicating they were preparing to lay eggs or had recently laid eggs at the time of death), and all the others are of indeterminate sex

[short sigil]

what? sir thats when you say the largest, biggest is measured by overall size
one of the reason's spino is called the biggest theropod cause its length is greater than every other theropod

[weak osprey]

mass is a measure of overall size

[frigid coral]

overall, sure, but just it’s length isn’t ‘overall’, that’s just one degree

unless I am misreading something

[short sigil]

Mass is measured in weight, or greater than average size, extent, quantity, or amount, that is not size while biggest is considerable size, number, quantity, magnitude, or extent.

[weak osprey]

a giraffe is taller than an elephant, but an elephant has more mass, therefore the elephant holds the title of largest land animal. There is also no difference between "largest" and "biggest".

[short sigil]

if you go by size then yeah the giraffe is bigger but by mass the elephant is the larger

[weak osprey]

also spino was only longer than a rex, it wasn't wider or taller, it was just longer.

[covert lintel]

Largest and Biggest have the same meaning, and size = weight in a scientific context

[short sigil]

No they don't largest and biggest are two different things

[weak osprey]

you are making things up just so you can make the stretch to say spino is the largest theropod

[covert lintel]

if something is the largest theropod, that means it has the most size of any theropod. if something is the biggest theropod, that also means it has the most size of any theropod. in this context, their meaning is identical; they both indicate something has the Most Size.

[weak osprey]

cite one source that recognizes largest and biggest as two separate things, because right now you are just giving your own definition that apparently only includes length

and no sensible scientist would ever consider a giraffe bigger than an elephant

[short sigil]

no one said it's the largest it's the biggest by length rex is still the largest cause of weight

[little mauve]

biggest by length is another word for longest. It's the longest, that's it

[covert lintel]

where are you getting the idea that "large" and "big" describe different methods of measurement? like, genuinely, where?

[short sigil]

https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/73643/what-is-the-difference-between-largest-and-biggest

[covert lintel]

top answer is literally "they usually mean the same thing" and the exception cited is when "big" means "important"

[little mauve]

Except rhetorically when you say something is important or "big"

[short sigil]

the largest is the one with the greatest surface area, the biggest may have a smaller surface area but be deeper and therefore larger

[clever sable]

Spino isn't the largest therapod, currently it's tied between rex and giga

[covert lintel]

that doesn't even resemble what that post says. where did you get this one
edit: OH, you've decided the third answer is a Correct Definition. the... least popular answer, on a stack exchange site for people just learning english, is how you're defining words in a scientific context. what

[elfin pulsar]

Big and large are the exact same thing, it’s just whatever you see it as

[short sigil]

Not largest, biggest by size

[weak osprey]

It's not the biggest by size though, that would still be rex

[clever sable]

No, it's still not the biggest, size is measured in mass, why are people so instant on ignoring this fact

[little mauve]

Size = mass, mass = density x volume, volume = length x width x height

by only measuring length you're only calculating one small part of total size

and with respect to physical reality, large and big are synonyms

[weak osprey]

If you assume they are perfect two dimensional rectangles, sure, spino is larger because its length difference would make up for it's shorter height. However, modern paleontologists agree that dinosaurs were not two dimensional rectangles.

[clever sable]

As of 2023 giga and rex are tied in size for the largest known specimen but on average rex is bigger by like .3 tons? Something like that

[keen forum]

yeah scotty is larger/possibly more robust ( idk about that one fully ), but sue is taller and longer. Also the giga vs rex thing it's still rex, rex is breaking 11tons at the moment

[deft sigil]

Just a general reminder to please remain polite and respectful towards each other in conversation. Refer to our #rules

[clever sable]

Scotty is 10.4 tons and sue is 9.9 I believe, I'm probably wrong about sue

[keen forum]

hmmm idk about that one I can say that sue and scotty are both over 10tons easily

[weak osprey]

yeah its close but rex is considered larger as of now. its possible giga could've been larger, but current size estimates point to rex.

[clever sable]

Well according to Dan folkes, as of 2023 Scotty is 10.4 tons, sue is slightly smaller

[keen forum]

if you want to use the 6.6% larger giga you get a 10.6ton animal using dans, if you you use his scotty and randoms sue yes you get 10.4 and 9.9tons buuut there has been some changes since then by others that make sue and scotty larger by a fair bit ( a ton if not more )

[compact leaf]

the difference in weight between sue and scotty is also pretty negligible, a big meal could put one over the other

[keen forum]

I'll say this tho form the bones scotty does seem to be more robust than sue tho

[clever sable]

Using the 6.6% larger than the holotype Dan got 10.4 not 10.6 tons

[keen forum]

ah my bad typo, also i wouldn't be shocked if that giga loses some weight as well but yeah atm there are other rexs that result in animals that are up to if not more than 11.6tons but time will tell if those last too

[clever sable]

Anything can get bigger if you add more soft tissue, dans not a fan of shrinkwrapping so I think the amount of soft tissue he accounted for while determining the weight is pretty accurate

[jagged trellis]

so giga and rex went from rex being bigger to giga being bigger then back to rex being bigger and now same size pretty much

[keen forum]

it can but to match rex you would have to exaggerate a lil bit but atm theres no real way to tell how big each got with 100% accurately but it seems rex is slightly larger for now we need more on giga to be sure how large it really got ( or a proper description )

that can go with rex as well if you want to go for max sizes you can get rex over 15tons which no one is gonna do you want to use more conservative estimates until shown other wise

[ancient crystal]

Now I'm imagining a rex with that disorder that makes muscles never stop growing, that would be something

[clever sable]

And people that helped with the current rex estimate have said by adding more tissue it could exceed 15 tons, adding the maximum amount of meat on something doesn't make it accurate, it just means it theoretically could get this big without dying under it's own weight

[white matrix]

Guess you can say there’d be tonnes of meat

[keen forum]

to be honest rex is already sitting at 11.6 on some cases which is already scary enough and that with just proper muscle also that joke lol

[clever sable]

Can people just stop trying to make their favorite dinosaur the "biggest" or the "strongest" because in the end it doesn't really matter

[heady thunder]

Give them both steroids and lets see what happens

[chilly knot]

Tbh could also be like 8.5, the previous one got gdi'd but idk how good it is

[keen forum]

have u gdi'ed it? if not trying talking to stego or alpha to help with that to get a better estimate

[keen forum]

where is this from? and oh that is large i stand corrected

[chilly knot]

From our goofy server

[keen forum]

ah understandable, but yeah if all the measurements are good then that would be the best current weight we have for the lad

[chilly knot]

[limber wolf]

Thoughts on irritator new mouth

[jagged trellis]

to be expected but also wasn't like a snakes, more like a loons or monitor lizard

[jagged trellis]

still love the inclusion of gills and dorsal plates

[elfin pulsar]

It doesn’t split yeah

[ancient crystal]

Every day we get closer to god(zilla)

[tranquil quartz]

Some day I hope we discover a megatheropod bigger than both Giga and Rex so people can stop arguing over which obese monster is bigger than the the other lol

[stiff osprey]

the 15.7 tonne deinocheirus in question:

[pearl briar]

we discovered one 😎

[rose thorn]

https://vxtwitter.com/ren_wenyu/status/1657385446631174145

[late gale]

Why spinosaurs have to be the absolute weirdest group of dinosaurs ever

[hoary jay]

hey dpoes anyone know if smilodon was a pack hunter or were they solo?

[stiff osprey]

S.fatalis was probably a pack hunter, S.gracilis and S.populator we don't know

[hoary jay]

Thank you!

[tough isle]

They’re not good in either. I took out 4 of them by myself as a metri

[hoary jay]

damn, ok thuank you!

[white matrix]

Well, in real life they were deadly for sure! 😂 😉

[hoary jay]

it isa hard tro balance things right

[white matrix]

I know that haha! I meant it as a joke 🙂

[hoary jay]

oh itsa you js! hello again!

[white matrix]

Hey hey! ^^

[ancient crystal]

Would pterosaurs have been grounded when it rained?

[clever sable]

I doubt it

[tiny holly]

Probably not no, their wings and thus ability to fly doesnt rely on their integument staying intact and normal

[ancient crystal]

Nice pfp 👍

And thanks for the answers

[clever sable]

Thx

[vital shell]

Hihi! I was wondering if anyone has a photo or a link to a website of all current up to date known dinosaurs that would be considered in the raptor-esc family? I’m super bad with the correct names for stuff like this so I apologize if that’s the incorrect phrasing. Also not sure if this would be considered paleo chat, so please correct me if this isn’t the correct channel. :)

[light osprey]

Everybody always vibing with your pfp lol

[clever sable]

Tbh moon presence was kind of an underwhelming fight, I kinda wish the fight itself lived up to the opening, still absolutely phenomenal

[ancient crystal]

It was, then Fromsoft overcompensated with elden beast and hurt my soul.

But this is not the chat to discuss the greatest games ever made

[light osprey]

Wikipedia is reliable enough for a quick check on their taxonomic categorisation 👍

[vital shell]

Thank you! Wasn’t sure if I should trust Wikipedia or not, I appreciate it!

[clever sable]

Definitely prehistoric wildlife, they are definitely a good source with absolutely no errors ever

[light osprey]

Don’t do that

[clever sable]

Spreading misinformation is fun though

[pearl briar]

paleo chat
may i ask what is sausage most up-to-date length & weight?

[hallow spear]

Yes.

[trim crag]

I believe there were some S. fatalis fossils found that showed healing from a serious injury which could point towards them being social but there is no proof to suggest that they were or weren't pack hunters

It's also likely they were pack hunters given the prey species for a cat that size as well as the fierce competition from P. atrox, A. simus, U. arctos, A. dirus, C. lupus and rival S. fatalis

[pearl briar]

ok then
.......
where is it?

[trim crag]

as for S. populator and S. gracilis it was far less likely but I certainly do believe S. fatalis may have hunted in packs but as said there's no way to know for sure unless we find some prehistoric art of them

[steady rock]

https://twitter.com/skinkpunch/status/1657245522191847424/photo/1 for help with pelican spinosaurids

dinosaurcomics (@skinkpunch)

Quick little comic on the new Irritator paper!

Likes

2704

Retweets

484

Twitter · May 13, 2023, 4:44 AM