paleontology

[west quarry]

I thought brain to body ratios, don’t determine intelligence levels iirc. For example Stegosaurus had a tiny brain but it has been predicted to be smarter than it is usually depicted as.

[jagged trellis]

brain to body ratios do show some general stuff( p sure the main one is how social something is in relation to the brain size thing) but not the end all proof

[flint vine]

In conclusion, the most accurate reconstruction of a dinosaur is whichever one looks the coolest ‼️

[covert lintel]

afaik troodontids were pretty smart, but not much smarter than related animals like dromaeosaurids. neat lil guys in their own rights, i love 'em dearly (and maybe given time they could've ended up being little geniuses... i like to think they would), but they're not on the same level as crows n such iirc? i think?

[light osprey]

Who knows, interpreting intelligence from a fossil sounds tricky

[bronze leaf]

i mean like they can mimic other dinosaur's sounds

and if they lived in modern ages, (not the modern birds) they could speak modern languages, albeit not understandably

[covert lintel]

true. i guess a better way to put it is that there's not much compelling evidence for troodontids being smarter than most of their other relatives

[light osprey]

Maybe they are dumb as hell 👹

[compact leaf]

estimating intelligence is incredibly tricky, even in modern animals because not everything will display it in the same way

[bronze leaf]

ive heard from some people that a trex as about as smart as a chimpanzee, but im not sure if thats true

[light osprey]

That study was quite the conundrum

[covert lintel]

yeag
it also doesn't help that - despite me Also using these terms because it's easier to understand and also way less wordy - the whole thing about ranking intelligence by Level is a bit flawed. i think a slug is just as intelligent as a human. the slug just does something very different with that intelligence (it trundles around and eats detritus and has a great time and has no care for "taxes" or "divorce")
or, a less extreme example: a parrot and an eagle are the same level of intelligence. the parrot's type of intelligence makes it better at cooperation, vocal mimicry, and language learning. the eagle's type of intelligence makes it an effective hunter and nest-builder (bald eagle nests are wild, dude). we call the parrot smarter but it's just doing something that's more familiar to us

[tranquil quartz]

I mean we as humans have vastly different brains to that of other aninals and vice versa.

[elfin pulsar]

Lost me at the slug intelligence

[clever sable]

No, it's highly exaggerated, modern birds like corvids are much more intelligent

[covert lintel]

someday you will understand the reality of the slug

[light osprey]

I can confirm the average slug is smarter than me

[astral kelp]

I love how we have well preserved panthera spelaea cubs.

[compact leaf]

you have to love it when you can get workable dna preserved

sort of related but there’s some really weird developments happening with dna and other microscopic preservation, we do not understand it nearly as well as we thought

[light osprey]

😳

[heady thunder]

JP moment?

[tranquil quartz]

Just a permafrost moment

[compact leaf]

I'm not talking about permafrost either btw this is stuff happening with dinosaurs

[tranquil quartz]

I was moreso talking about the preserved Cave Lion cubs when I said that

[pearl briar]

no it's not
rex was still a smart ass animal sure, but... not chimp leveled

[elfin pulsar]

Definitely not chimp

[pearl briar]

exactly

[sudden wind]

https://twitter.com/Evoincarnate/status/1679589070802960384?s=20

SHARK QUEEN OF THE INTERNET (she/her) 🦈 (@Evoincarnate)

i despise the myth megalodon only went after small prey
nah it was going after EVERYTHING bro
juvenile megalodon went after larger whales as evidenced by the fossil record
the whale was almost humpback sized and the shark about 4-8m

Twitter · Jul 13, 2023, 8:30 PM

[light osprey]

Oh that’s neat

[ancient crystal]

Wait theres a myth that megalodon only went after small prey?

[woeful falcon]

Unless I'm missing something, I never got the impression megalodon hunted only small prey. Rather that megalodon was so damn huge pretty much everything would have been smaller than it

[tranquil quartz]

Megalodon isn’t a picky eater

[stiff osprey]

^

There was nothing larger than itself to go after

[clever sable]

Especially if the specimen we have is a male as female sharks are significantly larger than males

[pearl briar]

does this mean that meg vs livy is possible?

[astral kelp]

livy is like smaller than a bull sperm whale, meg is like way bigger, meg demolishes it lol

[white matrix]

How big is Livy

[clever sable]

A pod of Livy's is a different story though (but we don't know if they lived in pods soooo)

[compact leaf]

it would be kind of weird for them to not live in pods

[clever sable]

True

[tiny holly]

Most whales don't tbf, sperm whales are one of the few that do

[clever sable]

Well, most toothed whales do

So it's more likely than not livyatan lived in pods

[tiny holly]

Most toothed whales are dolphins anyway, although ultimately what we call a dolphin vs a whale is arbitrary and has little bearing on relatedness. Though just by virtue of being related to sperm whales it is more likely than not that they lived in pods

[clever sable]

All dolphins are whales but not all whales are dolphins

[pearl briar]

so u sayin that orca's are both dolphin & whale???

[light osprey]

An Orca is a Cetacean

Whale and dolphin are common names so they don’t really mean anything. Afaik

[pearl briar]

can i still call it killer whale or orca?

[light osprey]

You can call it whatever you want I guess

[pearl briar]

ok imma call it "John"

[viscid surge]

That myth exists? In basically every piece of media ive seen its obliterating a pod of whales 💀

[viral jasper]

may i pls know the three aquatic preditors larger than meg (besides blue whale)

winterwhitelodge said there are three, i was only aware of one

[elfin pulsar]

Pretty confident there are none

[clever sable]

I don't think there are any

Meg is like 122 tons

[light osprey]

Megalodon is a bivalve mollusc. How did it get so big

[clever sable]

🤷

[stone tartan]

Due to the prey animals that lived during it time period

[light osprey]

Damn no one got the joke

[pearl briar]

there are none

[stone tartan]

😭

[eager skiff]

The largest "prey animal" that lived during its time was livy which was abt 70 tons. It makes no sense meg would be 120

[stone tartan]

Don't know maybe it overspecialization

[light osprey]

I think it’s based on how plentiful they were

So Megalodon could eat comparatively small prey and keep its size

[clever sable]

Livyatan is smaller than 70 tons, by a lot, livy got downsized

[viscid surge]

Would Livy really be the largest cetacean? Did all our modern baleen whales not exist at the time then?

[clever sable]

I dunno

[eager skiff]

Who was this made by

[clever sable]

I'm not completely sure

[eager skiff]

bruh alright

[viscid surge]

“Idk man but it looks pretty legit” xD

[stone tartan]

So anyway what is y'all favorite dinosaurs

[clever sable]

@tough parcel who made this chart

[tough parcel]

Not really seen the source, so I can’t say

[clever sable]

Bruh, I would @ KM because they are the one who originally posted it but I can't get the crown symbol in their name so I can't @ them for some reason

[viscid surge]

Megalania teiidae

[astral kelp]

Wait if a sperm whale is bigger than Livy how would it be the largest

[astral kelp]

@keen forum

[viscid surge]

Sperm whales probably evolved later I guess

[compact leaf]

meg also got downsized it's definitely not 120 tons anymore

[light osprey]

Ah hah 👆

I love a good downsize

[clever sable]

RIP meg (deserved tbh)

[compact leaf]

from more recent gdis you get an absolute max of 100t with the average probably being considerably lower especially for males, that's still a huge animal but it's not 120

[clever sable]

What if the specimen we have is a male?

[compact leaf]

I'll give you that one because we can't really tell, they may not have even been extremely dimorphic not all sharks are

regardless 100t is still the current theoretical max for the species and probably smaller than that

[light osprey]

Ah

[pearl briar]

so... should i updated my meg size info or what???

[light osprey]

I think so 🤷

[frosty anvil]

At the time? Idk

But overall? Not by a long shot, the blue whale is literally the biggest thing to have ever existed on the planet (if my info serves me correct)

Ohh I read the message wrong forgive me its 1 in the morning

Balleen whales are pretty old i think but idk if they're livyathan old, im no cetacean expert

[clever sable]

There were baleen whales but they hadn't reached absolutely titanic sizes yet

[light osprey]

Saying megalodon has never been downsized is a bit ambitious

[sudden wind]

Most Odontocetes live in organized pods, either they are sperm whales, beaked whales, dolphins or something else.

I would out my money on Livyatan to be relatively social, as it is seen in dwarf and pigmy sperm whales, but also in female sperm whales.

[sudden wind]

By a person on discord with the pseudo Evolutionincarnate. She made the Otodus skeletal based on extant Lamnids, Cooper's model, fossil record and 'Cretalamna. She used the Livyatan silhouette done by Tosha Hollman, Shastasaurus, Cymbospondylus and Shonisaurus by Dragonthunders, which he did the skeletal of both Cymbo and Shasta (as none exist) in order to make this size chart.

[sudden wind]

There was a Balaenopterid during the Pliocene that may have been similar in size to fin and blue whales. The fossil is known from Italy.

[sudden wind]

Fin whales can get larger than the biggest Meg and so do some bowhead/right whale species (being also the most absurd looking cetacean).

Look at this head/body ratio lmfao.

Funny things about those whales : their jaws are shaped like those of flamingos, they live up to more than 200 years and they break the ice sheath with their head.

[keen forum]

meg is 122tons still

and yep dragon thunder and absolute unit both got livy at 12.5m that would drop its weight quite a bit

[pearl briar]

what would actually happen if rex and giga met each other: (they will bcome besties)
https://twitter.com/KGiofha/status/1678765606840193029?t=uQZyU6ISBk9j4ryjyaF-jQ&s=19

Kretduy (@KGiofha)

little fantasy render, Giganotosaurus hanging out with a Tyrannosaurus :3

Likes

116

Twitter · Jul 11, 2023, 1:58 PM

[eager skiff]

Seems legit

[keen forum]

https://twitter.com/fishboy86164577/status/1584928023694159872

Tosha (@fishboy86164577)

The giant itself, Livyatan. Scaled with the proportions of Brygmophyseter, a (potential) close relative. Scaling like this gives a total length of only about 12 and a half meters, which makes sense in light of other macropredatory cachalots having proportionally massive heads

Likes

436

Twitter · Oct 25, 2022, 3:21 PM

[frail robin]

Probably just look at each other with confusion before walking away. If they weren't hungry there wouldn't be a reason for a fight to break out, and they would most likely move on

[tiny holly]

https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2023/3878-a-new-solnhofen-pterosaur new pterosaur. Because as if people calling all pterosaurs "pterodactyls" wasnt confusing enough, this guy is named Petrodactyle

just a silly lil guy

[viscid surge]

…named after the guy responsible for Dsungaripterus i guess?

[heady thunder]

Isnt Pterodactylus also a genus?

[tiny holly]

"‘Petro’ from the Ancient Greek for ‘stone’ and ‘dactyle’ from dactylus, for finger. This name harks back to the original description of the first pterosaur, Pterodactylus, a ctenochasmatid from the Solnhofen archipelago which was called the ‘Ptero-dactyle’ at the time, however, the name ‘Petrodactyle’ appeared on the cover of the description (Cuvier, 1809), apparently in error. However, this name would have the appropriate etymology of ‘stone-finger’ and thus is echoed here. The species name ‘wellnhoferi’ honours Dr Peter Wellnhofer who spent most of his career working on pterosaurs from the Solnhofen archipelago and associated beds."

[pearl briar]

accurate for a sarco + human size comparison? (even if it's a low poly art)

[eager skiff]

Too big

[pearl briar]

i wanted a rendered version, not just skeletal

ok whatever, this is a last chance for me
what is more accurate sarco + human size comparison?
left or right?

[heady thunder]

Depends how big the human is, that sarco can be anything from 16m to 7m.

[viscid surge]

Sarcosnake

[twin mica]

si hay foto hay video

[woeful hamlet]

I can’t find a consistent answer so I’m asking here, do we have an idea of how much Megalodon weighed ?

I’ve seen anywhere from 17 tons to over 100, I’ve had a lot of trouble gathering information about it.

[vocal breach]

100 is a good estimate iirc

[woeful hamlet]

And how many meters would it be alongside that weight?

Also Jesus that is a big fish

[vocal breach]

I think like 15-16

[woeful hamlet]

Alright, thanks.

[vocal breach]

Wait nvm this one’s better

[stiff osprey]

yeah, the 100+ tonners are 20 meters long
a 16m one weighs about 50 t

[woeful hamlet]

Well with this one there’s massive jumps between numbers. I need a consistent amount for both length and weight.

[vocal breach]

I’d say 18 meters and 100 tons

[woeful hamlet]

Is that a upper estimate based on what you know or an average?

[vocal breach]

I’d say slight upper estimate for a larger megalodon

[woeful hamlet]

Alright, im gonna run this by some people and if I have any other questions I’ll be back. Thanks man

[vocal breach]

Alr

[clever sable]

Poor livyatan

[woeful falcon]

Wym poor livyatan that mouth will mess things up still

And being a whale, it is presumably a very intelligent animal

[night bluff]

I was about to say, even dolphins bully great whites. I see no reason a Livyatan wouldn't nibble a meg.

[clever sable]

True

[woeful falcon]

Big melon too

[woeful hamlet]

Was it downsized or something?

[clever sable]

Yeah

[woeful hamlet]

You have a paper on it?

(Or article whatever)

[woeful falcon]

This
https://twitter.com/fishboy86164577/status/1584928023694159872

Tosha (@fishboy86164577)

The giant itself, Livyatan. Scaled with the proportions of Brygmophyseter, a (potential) close relative. Scaling like this gives a total length of only about 12 and a half meters, which makes sense in light of other macropredatory cachalots having proportionally massive heads

Likes

436

Twitter · Oct 25, 2022, 3:21 PM

[woeful hamlet]

Thanks

[clever sable]

https://twitter.com/fishboy86164577/status/1584928023694159872

Tosha (@fishboy86164577)

The giant itself, Livyatan. Scaled with the proportions of Brygmophyseter, a (potential) close relative. Scaling like this gives a total length of only about 12 and a half meters, which makes sense in light of other macropredatory cachalots having proportionally massive heads

Likes

436

Twitter · Oct 25, 2022, 3:21 PM

I wonder if pods of livyatans ever tried to hunt Megs

[woeful hamlet]

I doubt it, unless the meg wasn’t full grown it’s just so risky and they’re better off hunting something different

[clever sable]

Idk, pods of orcas have been recorded hunting sperm whales (although it's incredibly risky because the sperm whale can easily kill orcas)

And it depends on how large livyatan pods are

I don't doubt that a pod of like 15 livyatans could hunt a Meg, but if they lived in small pods of like 5 I don't think they would hunt a meg

[woeful hamlet]

It’s all theoretical considering we don’t know how large their groups were, and also orcas tend to hunt sperm whale calves, not adults

[clever sable]

Also it depends on the sex of the livyatan specimen we have, if it's a female it's possible males got much larger than the specimen we have and if the specimen we have is male than females would be much smaller

[astral kelp]

thats like super rare, its not a daily food source

[woeful falcon]

I mean livyatans got some chompers, but beyond that we don't know how they were socially.

[clever sable]

Yeah, sperm whales can seriously mess up orcas

[astral kelp]

a single sperm whale click can seriously hurt an orca, that click is no toy

[clever sable]

Well, seeing as most if not all toothed whales are pretty social I don't doubt that livyatan was social

[clever sable]

A click from a bull sperm whale can literally kill a human, it will explode your lungs, burst your heart and cause your brain to hemorrhage

[woeful falcon]

Right but what is a pod composed of I'm saying. Are they purely matriachal and bulls run off solo for most of their life or what are we talkin here

How big would their pods be

[clever sable]

Idk, I'm guessing similar to sperm whales I guess but idk

[astral kelp]

aren't sperm whales just usually mother and calf? bulls are around iirc but dont usually stay with them all the way

[woeful hamlet]

Off topic, but do we have an idea of how many teeth megalodon had?

[woeful falcon]

I said this bc this is what sperm whale pods are like

But livyatans could be very different in their behavior. They're macroraptorial and have the teeth to prove it

[clever sable]

Females form large pods and occasionally males will join those pods but it's predominantly females

[astral kelp]

gotcha

[covert lintel]

source?

[clever sable]

Males mostly live alone but males will occasionally form pods with other males

[clever sable]

The noise is literally over 200 DB, that's louder than many bombs, 230 DB to be exact, the bomb set off in Hiroshima was just over 250 DB

[covert lintel]

and the source for that?

[clever sable]

Sperm whales are literally the loudest animals alive

[compact leaf]

their clicks could basically melt our insides if they wanted to, they understand how fragile we are so they tone it down around us but they very much could

[clever sable]

They use these incredibly loud noises to stun their prey iirc

[covert lintel]

that's-
it doesn't matter now since i tracked down a source myself, but that's not a source bud c'mon

[compact leaf]

it’s pretty easy to find it’s a well documented thing

[astral kelp]

Yup

[clever sable]

Livyatan could probably also make these super loud clicks albeit on a smaller scale

Huh, I wonder how large estimates for livyatan would be based on pygmy sperm whales

[woeful falcon]

This all sounds very hyperbolic but I don't doubt sperm whale or livyatan clicks would be physically damaging

And also probably mess up your hearing if not just clap it

[clever sable]

I think they would be physically damaging as sperm whales literally use their clicks to hunt massive creatures such as giant squids and tuna

(well, we don't know if they use them to hunt giant squid)

[woeful falcon]

Do they actually or are yo-

you're pulling this out of your ass. They use their clicks to see

[covert lintel]

i'm seein' a lot of news articles about it, and it's on wikipedia, but i'm having a bit of trouble finding a paper about it

[covert lintel]

also no they don't
https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article-abstract/120/2/1118/892989
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep28562

(also turns out the second paper does have some info about the volume of sperm whale clicks. i had a source all along... my folly)

[clever sable]

You sure? I'm hearing that they use their clicks to hunt, although I may be misinterpreting what they mean as now that I think of it they may just mean they use it to locate prey

[compact leaf]

they use the clicks to locate prey but not generally for hunting, were they to actually click at a person with full volume it would vibrate our insides to the point of it being fatal just based on the sheer volume of it

[clever sable]

But I don't doubt that it could be physically damaging seeing as they make noises almost as loud as nuclear bombs (albeit it's not a massive bang like a nuke and more like a deep vibrating/rumble/clicking noise)

[clever sable]

Well, I guess my info was outdated

[compact leaf]

when they hit that volume it’s usually in one short burst, they can do quieter sounds for more extended periods of time (and they’re still ridiculously loud) but it’s not unheard of for them to paralyze peoples hands when they touch the whale while it’s vocalizing

[tranquil quartz]

Was Quetzalcoatlus able to fly vast distances?

[clever sable]

Almost certainly seeing as hatz could

[eager rune]

Hatze lived on a small island with pigme dinosaurs I think it's called I don't believe it was tho I don't specialize is pteorsaur info I mainly research herbivores

[clever sable]

How do you think it got to that island?

[eager rune]

Quezt I don't know much about but I do know the basics

[light osprey]

It walked of course

[eager rune]

It's possible but I don't think it was that much of a endurance flyer

[eager rune]

No tf it swam over there obviously

[clever sable]

Bro, it needed to get to that island somehow

[tranquil quartz]

Hatz was so successful because it could fly around Europe island to island and have a buffet basically

[light osprey]

Damn

[stiff osprey]

Azhdarchids were probably short burst flyers, however, short burst flyers are still capable of long flights if they stack up on fat reserves and all that. So it's not whether they could fly vast distances, it's how often they would (very rarely)

[eager rune]

Well you seem to know a lot more about fliers damn lol I don't know to much

[clever sable]

I gotta know how big livyatan is based on pygmy sperm whales, smh, nobody loves da pygmys

[eager rune]

But back to a debate that happened in game amarga is actually surprisingly fast for being a sauropod

[tranquil quartz]

Its a dwarf sauropod so its bound to be faster than that of Brachiosaurus,etc

[eager rune]

Yes even very oversized amargasaurus taking into account said oversize and comparing thickness its speed would be 25 mph while running pot amarga I mean

[west quarry]

I doubt Amargasaurus was a fast as a rhino though as you were saying.

[light osprey]

25mph sounds difficult for that animal to achieve

[eager rune]

Smaller realistic amarga was around that speed

[west quarry]

Didn’t amargasaurus have stubby legs aswell?

[eager rune]

Well it wasn't just a smaller sauropod it was built differently

[clever sable]

Lmfao, by my amateur calculations, based on pygmy sperm whales, I get 74.8 feet long (using skull length, I can't find a skull width at the base for either of them) let's just say i don't think this is reliable

[eager rune]

I don't believe so but not all sauropods were slow sluggish animals

Most were though tbf

[light osprey]

Brygmophseter is a close relative, so it was used to rescale it.

[clever sable]

Nah, 75 foot livyatan is real fr fr

[eager rune]

Btw I did look it up to refresh on amarga most sources are saying 31mph

[compact leaf]

elephants can hit that if they’re really hauling it but their cruising speed is much lower, probably the same for some sauropods

[light osprey]

Proof /j

[eager rune]

This is why I'm disappointed with pot amarga speed in game slower than rex is a exaggeration even if you think all sauropods are slow

[vocal breach]

Ark diplo running speed when

[eager rune]

Though I wouldn't compare elphants to sauropods I would compare them to a few hadrosaurs when it comes to speed that is not a bad comparison

[scenic flame]

All sauropods would be quite slow because they didn't have the range of motion in their limbs to run rven if we're referring to a smaller one like amarga

[eager rune]

Not all sauropods were like that especially a smaller one like amargasaurus I mean research it amargas speed was quite fast

There are always exceptions amarga just seems to be one of them

[tulip dove]

Where are you getting your information

[compact leaf]

they couldn’t run like most quadrupeds but they were still capable of jogging like elephants (albeit with a different gait in some cases and on a bigger scale), their limbs were sturdy but still pretty mobile

[eager rune]

From multiple different sources so it's not like it's just one specific place I get info from

[tulip dove]

Such as?

[compact leaf]

we don’t have a decent estimate on how fast amarga would have been though, probably similar to an elephant speed

[eager rune]

Any that said anything about it's speed all said 31mph

Like I would be looking around normally to make sure but everything that actually said anything about its speed said 31mph

[scenic flame]

your source is jurassic world the game

in reality amaragasaurus could only reach 14 km/h, or 8.7 miles per hour

[astral kelp]

Blud got caught in 4K

[elfin pulsar]

No

[light osprey]

Makes sense

[scenic flame]

make sure to check your source are reliable

[astral kelp]

For some reason I always thought vivid was a girl

[light osprey]

Are they?

[nova hedge]

Look at his bio

[light osprey]

Damn I’m dumb

[nova hedge]

No you're Chonksaurus

[light osprey]

🫡

[astral kelp]

Chonksaurus solos

[tranquil quartz]

I am Batman

[nova hedge]

Uh oh it's actually Batman

[hardy ravine]

Meanwhile Baguette solos ( bageherpeton*)
Idk what the hell were they thinking while nicknaming it
BAGUETTE

[broken rover]

Didn't know that atlasaurus turned out to be an interesting sauropod

[still prairie]

Oh i saw you in Pce discord

[nova hedge]

Oh really?

[covert lintel]

66*
65 is the graveyard

[tranquil quartz]

Where does Mr Jaekelopterus live?

[heady thunder]

In the graveyard

[tranquil quartz]

[light osprey]

Bro lives in a wasteland 😎

[charred gulch]

I'll die on this hill...Deinosuchus was both a Crocodile and a Alligator. 🗿

[light osprey]

No 🗿

[charred gulch]

🗿 Yes! When I see Deinosuchus I see the ultimate Hybrid 🗿

[fallow citrus]

crocogator

[tranquil quartz]

But crocodile and alligator didn’t even exist back then iirc

[light osprey]

It’s an alligatoroid I guess, but it doesn’t belong to the genus Alligator

[sudden wind]

^it is an alligatoroid, so it is closer to alligators than any other crocodylians.

However, you are somewhat right because crocodiles are what we call crocodylians in the common way, but it can also design animals within crocodylidae (which is the definition I stick with). So, no, Deinosuchus was not a true crocodile per say, but can be qualified as one depending of your definition of "crocodile".

[white matrix]

Deinosuchus was a true crocodylian

[clever sable]

Yes, we know

[clever sable]

Alligators are also crocodilians

[white matrix]

Obviously, but Deino is not a alligator or croc

It's part of the superfamily that includes caiman and gator

[clever sable]

Yes, we know

[white matrix]

Some folks clearly don't

[sudden wind]

No ways to know. If we go by closest relatives, you end up using Kogia and Physeter which have different social behaviors : one is quite social and live in organized pods of females while the other has a more solitary lifestyle.
If you want to look at ecological homologues, then you have killer whales and false killer whales, living in pods. However, pod size varies greatly among orca ecotypes : some can be as large as 3 while others up to 20 and more. Also, dolphins show themselves to have very complex social behaviors that are not similar to that of sperm whales, though sociality is still a thing within odontoceti.

So, I guess that Livyatan probably lived in pods, but how organized and how numerous they could be is and likely will still remain unknown. It depends of the model you will base yourself on, if you go by phylogeny backtracking or with ecological homologues.

[sudden wind]

It's a relative of alligators and caimans, you are right on that. I would personally call all Alligatoroids "Alligators" just like all crocodyloids "Crocodiles" as it includes various genus (Crocodylus, Mecistops and Osteolaemus). The distinction between alligators and caimans is more about their geographic range : one lives in the Northern hemisphere while the other lives in the Southern hemisphere. Of course though, Caimaninae form a monophyletic group as well as Alligatorinae, but in a large sense they all are "gators".

[pearl briar]

bro who is unnamed 💀

[clever sable]

Some livyatan things I guess

[light osprey]

Is this the newer estimate?

[clever sable]

Some are

I think the sperm whale estimate for livyatan is pretty reasonable (13.5 meters)

[light osprey]

I’m not sure if that’s the new one

[clever sable]

The new one is 12.5 meters

[heady thunder]

Livy was 15m long.
Source: It was unveiled to me in a dream.

[light osprey]

Those megalodon length estimates seem wildly tame.

[heady thunder]

Id say theyre pretty wild.
A 100 ton mollusk? Yeaj I dont buy it

[light osprey]

And for starters why is a bivalve being depicted as a shark 😈

[clever sable]

Idk

[covert lintel]

the latest one is dated 2015, so that may have something to do with it.
a good few of the images seem to be pretty old, anyway

[clever sable]

I wish we could find more livyatan fossils

[heady thunder]

We will, and theyll be sold to private collectors

[light osprey]

Love this guys art

[clever sable]

Same

[pearl briar]

bro imagine baby nanokogia (the smol 4th whale)

[clever sable]

I feel like the largest reasonable estimate for livyatan is 14 meters

[light osprey]

I recently found his Herrerasauridae stuff

[clever sable]

Smol boi

[heady thunder]

Well depends, idk how whales change sizes from the big ones vs average ones, but if its like, a whale shark where the average is like 12 and the record is 19, a big livy could easily be 14, tho idk how whales scale and I dont really find whales cool enough to research it

[pearl briar]

baby
tiny, tiny boi

[rain root]

nobody knows, hes unnamed

[clever sable]

It also depends on the sex of the specimen we have

[stiff osprey]

16m average megalodon when the 19m bull livyatan shows up

[light osprey]

Very real

[compact leaf]

the fact that a 19m livy is even remotely possible is terrifying

I also don't know how to feel about the fact that sauropods have made it so that 19m doesn't seem very long to me now

[clever sable]

Well, if the specimen we have is female it might be real

But we don't know it's sex, if it's above average, if it's below average or anything like that

[clever sable]

What do you think the chances of this being a female livyatan are? Do you think it's goofy for me to say "well if this specimen is female it may be possible males got much bigger"

[woeful falcon]

50/50 :^)

[clever sable]

We gotta find more livyatan specimens smh

[compact leaf]

at least with megalodon we have a decent sample size from teeth livy it really is a 50/50 shot

[light osprey]

Maybe there was only one Livyatan. Just a single individual representation the entire genus for all of time

[chilly knot]

Real

[clever sable]

It's too bad whales aren't very sexually dimorphic in bone structure other than stuff like tooth count

I would claim that the livy specimen we have may be male but we have 0 evidence of it being male

Although I Don't think it's super unlikely what we have is a female I have no evidence that it is a female

[light osprey]

Alright I need some big brain experts you to inform me on the cranial kinesis condition in Spinosauridae

Apparently there’s a discussion of sorts to be had

[woeful falcon]

Oh, I found a post of Neeco already mentioning this lol. Though idk if they mean all Spinosaurs across the board or what. Gonna leave the tag on so they can elaborate

[light osprey]

I think they’re referring to the kind of cranial kinesis that all theropods have being present. I don’t know how Baryonychinae fit into it, which is what I’m curious about

[clever sable]

So all theropods had wide jaws? I know rex had sexy cheeks but that's it

[light osprey]

It’s a very smol amount of movement in the bone. Not something visibly distinct from what I understand

[clever sable]

Nuuuu, I'm sad now

[woeful falcon]

Well yes but they mention that it is obligate, that whenever spinosaurs open their mouth it spreads their jaws (the condition found in Irritator). That's not the case for all theropods

[light osprey]

Yes that makes sense

[clever sable]

So like monitor lizards

[light osprey]

The Quadratojugal is the fancy thing in Irritator, so you can’t really articulate the face in any other way.

Well that and it pairing with the surrangular too

[eager rune]

No it was 5 sources saying that just about and those are the only ones the said anything on it not my fault jw games say that is its speed and also man 8 mph is way to slow I know for a fact it was faster than that

[astral kelp]

Than show them

[eager rune]

I thought this over but nvm now I gotta do work to prove to people on a pot discord a amargasaurus speed

Also that's way to slow considering how if something is lets say 30 tons and there's another species that's 6 tons the one that's 6 tons is obviously going to be faster

[iron halo]

You have to put work into your side of a debate? No way

[viscid surge]

[eager rune]

No it's the fact I'm trying to chill now for the last 10 minutes I got before I gotta do something

Look up how fast is amargasaurus and see how many say 31 mph

[frigid coral]

I mean don’t claim something if you can’t actively prove it directly
you will never be at peace that way

[eager rune]

I do not feel like doing this rn when people can look it up much easier

[astral kelp]

What’s the source give it to us

If it’s google, you’ve made yourself look wrong

[iron halo]

Look up how heavy Spinosaurus is and see how many sources say 20 tons. Clearly Spinosaurus is 20 tons. “Look up” is not a source

[eager rune]

Look at how many say 31 mph is all I'm saying even if I'm wrong every one I saw said 31 mph

[iron halo]

Again, by your logic, Spinosaurus is 20 tons.

[tough parcel]

This is based off math, yours is based off Jurassic World: The Game

[eager rune]

It isn't because that isn't what I based it off

[clever sable]

You sure are good at providing evidence, you seem like a very credible source everyone should believe at face value

[astral kelp]

Blud would believe spinosaurus could fly at this point 😭

[frigid coral]

I love it when someone’s source is “a couple of dudes said it somewhere”

[clever sable]

Fr

[iron halo]

Wdym? Look it up is such a great source

[frigid coral]

Pachycephalo was the size of an Argentinosaurus, just look it up, a couple of dudes said it on like two size charts

[astral kelp]

Utahraptor could dive 6000 ft underwater

Source trust me bro

[woeful falcon]

No need to belittle

[clever sable]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GVpHchzogtjkTqQrP7PFM2BAWMGHYHABD-Xnk_6KPj0/edit#gid=0 chart is cool

[eager rune]

You guys are acting like I offended you if I'm wrong like I'm sorry but I don't care how credible you think I am man this is a discord pot chat it was the most common answer I got simply because no other's said anything on Its speed

[woeful falcon]

The homie was wrong and/or didn't know where to look, so let us show them

[frigid coral]

I’m sorry for mocking, I’ll go grab some sources for this

[eager rune]

But using basic reasoning I doubt amargasaurus was that extremely slow

[elfin pulsar]

Is that a knight riding a dripped out pachy

[woeful falcon]

Aye. We give ourselves so much crap that its easy to forget not everyone is in the loop on a lot of matters regarding dinosaurs

[eager rune]

(Yes it was hard to find)

[elfin pulsar]

Very nice

[clever sable]

Amarga is funky

[astral kelp]

Kind of hard to help people when they become arrogant and/or refuse to believe it

[frigid coral]

ok so first off when it comes to the sources, I’m pretty sure the thing you got it from was a older website article that claimed it has the same speed as a rhino. This is further spread by JWA which made it on a website labeled Paleo whatever, and this got featured by Google.

Speed is a bit hard to determine when it comes to prehistoric creatures for the most part, especially sauropods

[eager rune]

Yeah it is but I tried to simply use my knowledge on other creature's to help find out

[frigid coral]

Which is perfectly fine ofc

[woeful falcon]

Yeah but we can all stand to be respectful to one another. I've slung my fair share of mud in the day but it doesn't feel good to get dunked on for not knowing something

Or having the wrong info

[frigid coral]

The source Vivid gave is based off various math, I’d read through the chart. I’m unsure as to where they got it from, so I can’t confirm if it is credible, but I’ll also check for that

[astral kelp]

It’s from larramendis book on sauropodamorphs

[clever sable]

Is livyatan Still large enough to be considered the apex predator of it's environment? I'm guessing not

[frigid coral]

Thanks

[eager rune]

Hm basic reasoning already tells me 8 mph even if it's slow is way to slow

[clever sable]

Because it was living alongside megalodon and it's much smaller so I don't think it would be at the top of the food chain

[astral kelp]

iirc Facts and Figures: Sauropods is the title or smth

[woeful falcon]

I mean, I would think. Depends on its range too. Apex can be pretty loose. Take white sharks and orcas for example

[clever sable]

True

I stand by the fact that the livyatan specimen we have is female and the males were actually 19 meters (I'm joking)

[frigid coral]

On that note, the chart can be a little hard to read. Basic reasoning often isn’t what the final word is when it comes to things. Sometimes science and math itself can surprise you. The book in question was made by an expert (as far as I know, or at least based off the word from some.), whom likely spent many hours checking this through, I can assure you everything was taken into account, even if basic reasoning may seem otherwise

[iron halo]

Sauropod speed is kinda goofy, though. Isn’t atlasaurus faster than/similar speed to allosaurus simply due to stride length, despite being several times larger?

[woeful falcon]

Not exactly comparable but environments with multiple top predators exist as well. Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus have coexisted

[clever sable]

Meg and livyatan probably had a relationship similar to great whites and dolphins I guess? I can't really think of a good comparison

[astral kelp]

Would hyenas and lions fit too?

[frigid coral]

Probably? If modern animals and research is anything to go by, they likely would have rarely coexisted except if a Megalodon ventured deeper than its preferred place to hunt, the shallower waters

[tough parcel]

Keep in mind, (for his theropod book, at least) Larramendi’s formulas were “fact-checked” by fossilized trackways iirc and they got around the same estimates as the trackways

[eager rune]

Saltasaurus you mean?
Sorry I don't know that many species

[astral kelp]

Atlasaurus is different sauropod

[tough parcel]

Atlasaurus has insanely long legs too so it makes sense to be faster than the stubbier Amargasaurus

[iron halo]

^true

[clever sable]

Livyatan estimates should be based on pygmy sperm whales fr fr

[woeful falcon]

Maybe not exactly comparable, but I think its worth mentioning along with everything said before that ecosystems aren't necessarily rigid and simple

[frigid coral]

Again Megalodon and Livy would’ve rarely come into contact unlike any of the previous animals mentioned

[clever sable]

The sperm whale is probably my favorite living animal, and livyatan is my favorite extinct non mesozoic animal, so I'm hoping the specimen we have is female but I don't have anything to support my claim of this so for now I will have to settle with males being 12.5 meters

[woeful falcon]

Course we can't exactly know what livyatan and megalodon's ecosystem was precisely like, but I can imagine Livyatans didn't like being around were large adult megalodons were

Especially mothers

[frigid coral]

the “battle in the deep” that is so often shown would’ve rarely happened, as, well, that’s not where Megalodon is shown to have lived or hunted, they just most likely had different preferences

[clever sable]

Livyatans and Megs probably didn't encounter each other much as we can assume that livyatan was a deep diver and or pod oriented persistence predator

[astral kelp]

Can we talk about how maip is only 3t, I expected to at least clock in minimum 5t

[frigid coral]

think of it less like a great white and dolphin and more like a crocodile and alligator (I wasn’t sure how else to explain it). These animals rarely coexist except for a few select examples, and when they do, they tend to avoid each other still

when they do, it’s out of desperation or because one individual was small enough to go after

[clever sable]

I really, really hope that another livyatan specimen that isn't just a skull is found

[woeful falcon]

Or teeth

[astral kelp]

I hope to find more spinosaurus specimens

[clever sable]

But that's highly unlikely

[woeful falcon]

Who knows

[frigid coral]

Oh wait I forgot to mention this
I am working on a review for a website regarding dinosaur figures, and accuracy is a pretty big factor when it comes to these reviews. I’ve gotten a couple things down like improper feathering, strange skull, etc, but want to know if there’s anything else

(This is Microraptor Gui by PNSO)

[astral kelp]

No lips?

[frigid coral]

Mentioned that as well when it comes to the strange skull

[covert lintel]

afaik there's no evidence for the raised "crest" of feathers? could be wrong

[clever sable]

Controversial opinion: I don't think the 15 meter estimate for livyatan is unreasonable but that's just me

[frigid coral]

Thanks! I’ll bring that up

[woeful falcon]

15m would be a fairly large livy to our current understanding, but I don't see why it couldn't be possible

[light gazelle]

anyone will be nice enough to get me path of tittans ive been wanting the game sence it came out and right now my family dosent have the money to buy it if not please dont give me a rude response thanks and have a good day

[clever sable]

I mean 15 meters for the specimen we have rn, personally I think 12.5-13.5 meters are the best estimates though but I don't think a 14-15 meter estimate is super unlikely

[iron halo]

Very minor but afaik shouldn’t there be feathers connecting to the second finger which covers it up a bit

[woeful falcon]

Oh that's different. I'll stick to 12.5m because, well, I don't have reason not to lol. But I can imagine larger Livys being 15m

[tough parcel]

https://twitter.com/BeyondOur_W0rld/status/1678691568973406208

@frigid coral

beyond (@BeyondOur_W0rld)

After taking everything here, took the time to slow down and remove stylization, I have the finalized look of the wings as result of this thread, check out below! Will be using Utahraptor’s arm as a base, and the primaries and secondaries are color coded for convenience. (1/?)

Likes

129

Twitter · Jul 11, 2023, 9:03 AM

[clever sable]

Skull

Uhhhhh, why are you asking in Paleo talk? I guess ask in general

[clever sable]

Is this chart reliable (other than the livyatan estimates)

[elfin pulsar]

Did spinosaurids have lips

[clever sable]

Most likely

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/we-just-dont-know-yet-howards-wenke-being-the-ricardos-were-not-sure-yet-its-still-undetermined-gif-24211984

[willow frigate]

Been trying to keep this guy as accurate as possible. I know that the head is too small and the legs may be too long. It’s based kind of off of both of Dan folkes most recent skeletals.

I started by basing it off of his one from 2021 without knowing he had made a more recent one, which I switched to when I found out, but I was already a good bit into the drawing so I didn’t want to start over… any critiques?

[frigid coral]

I mean without personal preference
Arms seem a little skinny? Mainly at the top of the arm. Overall it’s pretty good

[glass junco]

It's legs are also a tad thin? Like, they sorta look like they'd snap carrying his body mass

^ not mean negatively btw, just tryna help

[noble ridge]

What does this sign mean?

[glass junco]

You or a group member was attacked

[kind narwhal]

Not the right channel, go to #path-of-titans

Also, is this an accurate herrasaurus?

[elfin pulsar]

Damn that’s some awesome art, do you know the artist

[tough parcel]

FredTheDinosaurMan

[elfin pulsar]

Ty

[heady thunder]

Fred the GOAT

[elfin pulsar]

Ohhh he’s the artist of my fav spino drawing, always wondered who made that

[heady thunder]

Which one is that?

[elfin pulsar]

This one

[heady thunder]

Awesome all around, flat tail like a basilisk too.

[covert lintel]

no, "deino" isn't meant to mean dinosaur there. the "dino" in dinosaur and the "deino" in deinosuchus (and deinonychus, deinocheirus, etc.) both mean "terrible" (as in "inspiring terror", not "bad"). so terrible reptile, terrible crocodile, terrible claw, terrible hand, etc.

it's usually used for clades that're particularly fierce or awe-inspiring

(edit: also the two groups were fully separated around the start of the mesozoic, as far as i know)

[hardy ravine]

Meanwhile irritator*

[heady thunder]

Irritator is just, an annoying guy fr.
No other way to slice it.

[nova hedge]

Split jaw incident

[stray wren]

Yeah, Crocodillians and Dinosaurs have been separate since the start of the mesozoic. It's funny that we still have both in the modern day

[covert lintel]

i'm gonna add a lil note to what i said just bc i wanna cover my bases: if we're being really technical, dinosauria specifically may or may not have shown up until like, the middle-ish triassic, but dinosaur-line archosaurs were fully separated from crocodile-line archosaurs around the start of the mesozoic, which i honestly feel is Close Enough. the individual groups may not have existed, but the things that'd evolve into them were still definitely different from eachother, so like. it works it's fine don't worry about it!!

[snow pivot]

Highly doubt it
Alligators and crocodiles dont have lips because their environment..idk..helps their teeth remain moist or whatever
But they dont have lips cuz the water covers that
Spinosaurus lived in around the same enviroment and most likely hunted a lot by water
And having lips would probably get in the way of the piercing effect of the teeth of spinosaurus
and other spinosaurids ex:suchomimus,baryonyx,and so on and so forth

Probably

[stray wren]

They probably did have lips, simply because lips are likely the ancestral condition and their teeth don't really have the specialized enamel for it. They also have the supporting foramina on their jaws and lack the rugosity that would be characteristic of liplessness

[exotic quest]

damn

[stray wren]

Proximity to water isn't a good reason either, plenty of aquatic and semi-aquatic animals still have their lips

Notable examples are whales and dolphins, hippos too

Most modern marine reptiles also kept their lips

[snow pivot]

Do we really see enamel in fossils

Also oh yeah i frogor monitor lizards exist

[stray wren]

Yes, it's how we know Smilodons teeth weren't covered

Tusks also have that enamel cause they're just specialized teeth

[snow pivot]

Im certain on why prehistoric planet probably wont ever cover spinosaurus now jesus

[stray wren]

That and Spinosaurs is an ever changing enigma of an animal

[snow pivot]

yeah

[tough parcel]

(Not really)

[stray wren]

Shut up falcon (with love)

[tough parcel]

But fr, you’ve got one point here, in that lips would intrude on a sweeping hunting style (snapping shut quickly on fish and swiping to the side to grab them)

[snow pivot]

I have a point😳

[stray wren]

I mean, keratinzed lips are stiff. I'm mostly joking though, that's a cursed thought

[tough parcel]

Having lips pushes water out of the mouth iirc (more so than just the jaws snapping shut) so any type of lip might be wrong

[snow pivot]

Also whats the word on those studies saying spinosaurus couldnt swim cuz if its body shape and if it went in water it would just tip over
And another thing against spinosaurus being a fully aquatic hunter
Drag
Spinosaurus wouldve probably been too slow in water to be effective no?

[stray wren]

It could swim, it just wasn't an underwater pursuit predator

[snow pivot]

Which is why im fully in support of spinosaurus being
Whats it called
The "waiting its jaws above water and catching fish"

[stray wren]

That was never gonna happen, the sail produces far too much drag for it to be. It was likely a wader like all of its kin

Well, Spinosaurines anyway. Baryonychines were probably more terrestrially inclined, still fish eaters but wouldn't pass up an Ornithopod or adjacent taxa

[snow pivot]

Whats that dino doc back in 2011 was it?
Or was it 90s era?
The one thats with spinosaurus and david attenborough when he didnt have a lazy eye

It had rugops

[stray wren]

Monsters resurrected?

[snow pivot]

It also had spinosaurus vs Carcharodontosaurus

[stray wren]

Monsters Resurrected or Dinosaur Planet I think

[snow pivot]

Well either one
It had spinosaurus lake feeding and being a wasteful sod
And then rugops comes and eats the scraps
And now in prehistoric planet 2 the same situation was happening with austroraptors
Am i the only one who thought that was a reference?

[heady thunder]

Planet Dinosaur, very cool

[snow pivot]

Holy curse word
David attenborough is 97 YEARS OLD
he finna die 😭😭
i hope he doesnt before prehistoric planet 3
Hopefully coming this October

[stray wren]

Eh, it's based on real behavior, stuff only eats the best parts of some things and just leave the rest to be picked clean or decompose

Nah, it was a year between PP1 and 2, will likely be the same between 2 and 3

[tough parcel]

Or even more, considering PP2 was basically just scrapped PP1 segments

[covert lintel]

yeah, php3 is probably going to take... A While

[snow pivot]

Eh idk i was thinkin the same but i feel like pp1 was just like an opener to see if would do well
And now pp2 is the 15th best appletv show so it might be sooner

[stray wren]

VFX takes time, as does writing

[tough parcel]

Just because it did well doesn’t speed up the research, animation, and just production time in general lol

[snow pivot]

And the clock is ticking on david attenborough so they best hurry

[stray wren]

And now that we know they're open to commissioning papers, it might take even longer if they want to do some interesting stuff

[tough parcel]

They what lol

[stray wren]

They commissioned/funded a whole research paper for the Mosa segment

[tough parcel]

Zamn

[stray wren]

Inb4 we see Spinofaarus sponsored by Apple

[snow pivot]

I wanna see spinosaurus so bad in pp3
I mean they covered north america and asia
Africa is logically next right

[tough parcel]

I hope it stays out of PP until we get the skeleton we have fully described

[snow pivot]

Cant we all agree that this is just close enough

[tough parcel]

Cause right now, Ibrahim is just publishing the skeleton in parts 😭

[tough parcel]

Not really…

[stray wren]

Flipper Spino

[snow pivot]

What key mistakes are there

Be happy its not..
jp3...

[tough parcel]

Oi, JP3 Spino goes hard as hell

Oh btw Ibrahim’s dead on account of this image right here, so no more Spino

[snow pivot]

Theres been no more spino since whichever world war destroyed the first fossils

Which country was it so i have a reason to hate them
Probably germany

[stray wren]

Inb4

[tough parcel]

That’s not right, I know that for 100% fact now

[stray wren]

Yeah

[snow pivot]

Why are its hind legs so thin

[covert lintel]

with how much flip-flopping i've been seeing about this over the past couple years, i wouldn't be surprised if we go back to quad spino for a while. it's just part of the cycle now

[tough parcel]

Common Pie L, it’s incredible how many he takes

[stray wren]

Inb4 I was right about flipper spino

:3

I will be correct

[snow pivot]

I will not tolerate MF KNUCKLE WALKERS

[tranquil quartz]

Iswtg if it turns out to have flippers 💀

[stray wren]

Knuckle walking is a no, palm walking however

Falcon I will beat you

[snow pivot]

If it was a flipper why does it have more bones than it should have usually flippers are like idk straight
And not like \

[stray wren]

Quad is probably a no though, from everything I've heard

[snow pivot]

And why does it have the capability to make a fist flipper 😭😭

[tough parcel]

Ichthyosaur

[stray wren]

Flippers come in a variety of shapes and bone count. Icthyosaurs for example just crammed as many as they could in there. Spino would have more of a pseudo-flipper, something like a clawed penguin wing I think

[snow pivot]

Yeah but its not going in like more than 1 direction its basically a plate on Ichthyosaurs

[covert lintel]

For Now ™️
(tbf it could be For Forever, but you never know with this thing. ya think ya know how it works, then it turns out it doesn't work like that, on account of Spinosaurus Reasons. i don't trust it! i love it, but i don't trust it!)

[snow pivot]

Flippers are normally like long fingers no?

[stray wren]

Digits two and three fuse to support the flipper structure leaving digit one as the only independent finger (digit two would keep a claw as well but be rigid)

Just my crackpot theory though, just a fun little thought in my brain

[covert lintel]

more like hands with no fleshless gaps between the fingers, really. some marine mammals still have quite hand-y hands

[stray wren]

I'm not actually pushing for it, I just like messing with falcon

[snow pivot]

Im too tired for this

[stray wren]

I think it's not too crazy for it to be the case. But I know its not likely

[pearl briar]

sacabambaspis

[stray wren]

Besides I'm not qualified to say for sure, yet

[somber tartan]

Fun debate question: what extinct non-avian dinosaur would you say, could be brought back to the modern day and possibly thrive

I saw someone argue for allosaurus on YouTube

[stray wren]

Anything larger than an ostrich is probably a no go. Smaller Dromaeosaurs and Troodontids could probably thrive in urban areas

Though, I'd probably say a small ceratopsian would be best, something like Leptoceratops or Psittaco

[viscid surge]

Carnivores smaller than a bear, and herbivores smaller than a hippo would all probably do ok . Obviously, smaller ones would have better chances of survival.

[somber tartan]

I asked this same question in the bob server and they agree velociraptor

[eager rune]

Crichtonsaurus

I'd say especially with it being armored with a small club tail yet not being to large

[heady thunder]

Release some tyranosaurs in Botswana and lets see how the elephant population copes.

[somber tartan]

Someone on another server said any Ornithomimid

[frail robin]

Deinonychus in Greece, for simple reasons

1. Big enough to prey on the numerous cats here
2. Agile enough to prey on the many pigeons and birds
3. Can climb and is very agile, making it able to survive in cities
4. Possibly nocturnal, decreasing interactions with people
5. Small enough not to overheat during summer
6. Feathered, preventing freezing during winter and spring (we have a lot of heavy rains here)

[somber tartan]

It seems that almost everyone is in agreement that at least some sort of dromeasaur would thrive

[frail robin]

Tbh, a lot of velociraptorin dromeosaurs would have had a lot of success in rural areas. Their giant relatives and their long-snouted fisher cousins... not so much

[heady thunder]

It ofc depends where they are released, a carno or smth that size could probably live comfortably in somewhere like nature reservations in Africa.

[frail robin]

Deinocheirus would probably out-compete hippos in Africa, Nanuqsaurs and Yuttyranus would have much success in Russia, many pterosaurs would thrive and drive thousands of bird species to extinction, Elephants would cease to exist and there would be much chaos

Generally everything mammals do dinosaurs did it better

[heady thunder]

I dont think elephants would seize to exist cos of them, tho they will cos of us if we dont change our behavior.

[frail robin]

Yeah lol, but generally any large herbivorous dinosaurs and any large therapods would either outcompete, or hunt Elephants to extinction

[steady rock]

I think there's another answer, microraptor and dinosaurs like that

[heady thunder]

It depends, like an allosaur isnt big enough to just merk entire elephant herds and it will also supplement with the vast amount of buffaloes and maybe some rhino and hippo, tho rhinos would probs have a harder time.
Smth like Rex would probably be too much for the current elephant populations.

[somber tartan]

Oh definitely

[frail robin]

Yeah, but if we place dinosaurs in enviroments similair to those they inhabited, Rex wouldn't be in Africa

[tough parcel]

Keep in mind, dinosaurs need significantly less food than mammals of similar size. So a rex (or at least a mid-sized tyrannosaur) could comfortably live in Africa

[heady thunder]

Yeah Rex cant really make a living in america rn, maybe when we bring the mammoths back.
Tho maybe that would stunt its growth and it would always remain like a semi sub rex thingy closer to an albertasaur

[somber tartan]

I’ve seen a lot of people so far specify Africa as the main environment for a dinosaur in the modern day

[tough parcel]

Mainly because that's the only place where true megafauna live in decent populations 😭

[somber tartan]

I mean it makes sense, lots of large prey

[frail robin]

Africa is so much dryer than the environment Rex lived in

[tough parcel]

That was said with only food in mind, not environmentally 👍

[frail robin]

Which one? Which dinosaur lmao

[heady thunder]

Anything carnivorous bigger then a cera tbh

[frail robin]

A Nanuqsaurus appears in Africa and dies 2 days later lmao

[somber tartan]

Well so far people have only said dromeasaurs, troodontids and ornithamimids. I asked this on like 4 other servers

[heady thunder]

Put the nanuq on an african mountain range where its not super hot and it may cope fine.
About the food there idk

[tough parcel]

Tbh, I could see hadrosaurs or ceratopsians making a decent living somewhere with enough food to grind up

[tulip dove]

Could something like Shunosaurus (Lii, the smaller species) or a similar sized sauropod survive today?

[frail robin]

Also Pachycephalosaurs, Megaraptors, Ceratosaurs, Tyranosaurids, Stegosaurs, maybe Spinosaurids and a lot, and I mean A LOT of Azhdarchids, Tapejarids and Thalassodromids

[heady thunder]

Tarbo would probably love Africa, Rex would sweat a bit much.
Did dinosaurs sweat or pant?

[somber tartan]

We making Jurassic world dominion up in here. I wanna see some specified environments tho, like what you said for deinonychus. Really loved that

[heady thunder]

You can drop quanzhi on like a natural tiger reserve in India and it would do fine.
Unless it got hunted but if were going Dominion mode thats illegal.

[frail robin]

Jurassic World Dominion but it actually focuses on stuff other than big crickets
I am already writting a book, maybe I'll do something like this as a side-project. Suddenly a bunch of prehistoric creatures appear in the modern world and everything goes bonkers

[somber tartan]

Sounds pretty damn neat

[stray wren]

I'd still say small Dromaeosaurs like Velociraptor could thrive in urban environments, like foxes and raccoons

They'd definitely eat garbage

[frail robin]

Some small species of Pachycephalosaurs too, since they were omnivorous

[tough parcel]

Narp

[somber tartan]

Pretty sure the whole omnivorous pachycephalosaur thing is still just a theory

[stray wren]

Some ankylosaurs would probably do well too, given how many of them are generalists

[somber tartan]

Oh ankylosaurs would definitely

But without something to hunt them, theyd end up overpopulated since there’s almost nothing that can take them down on land

[tough parcel]

I would

[somber tartan]

punches an anky

[tiny holly]

I'm willing to be annoyingly nitpicky and argue that a lot of herbivorous dinosaurs, regardless of size, would likely struggle due to the plant life they were specialised for eating no longer existing. After all, certain plant groups dying out is likely responsible for the decrease + extinction of certain dinosaurs iirc. Herbivores that would do best today would be those that fed on plants that have stuck around, or at least have very similar modern analogies. Generalists would probably be better off too.

Carnivores wouldn't have quite this same issue because meat is meat. If you can catch it and eat it, you're set

So uhhhh sucks to be a triassic herbivore because plant life then was pretty different compared to the late cretaceous which wasnt too far off from today

[somber tartan]

Triassic herbivores being blipped into the modern day just to starve:

[heady thunder]

We have to deploy the tyranosaurs

[somber tartan]

Or at least something they can flip them over if it doesn’t get it’s shins shattered

But what would be a tyrannosaur fit? If we just throw in T. Rex, it would cause many animals to go extinct.

[tough parcel]

Legit any mid-sized tyrannosaur might be good, but those are 3-4 ton powerhouses on their own...never mind the fact they were likely pack hunters

[heady thunder]

Depends what ankylosaurs were deployed.

[somber tartan]

Maybe Ano? Sauropelta?

[heady thunder]

For ano?
Pffdf, an alberto or dasp if you wanna go overkill.

[somber tartan]

I just realize no one has mentioned any sort of Oviraptor, they may be able to defend themselves against small predators and maybe outrun those that they can’t fight, but if all else fails, there’s a possibility that they could be breeding like rabbits

[heady thunder]

Maybe all dinos bred like rabbits.

[somber tartan]

This one, YouTube video I watched mentioned that allosaurus laid a bunch of eggs so that could possibly have caused overpopulation if in the modern day

[heady thunder]

Allo is by far the most numerous dino in some of the bonebeds its found, so you can make that argument.
Tho how much of that is preservation bias and how much is allo being built different is tough to say.

[somber tartan]

I’m gonna find that video and link it here

https://youtu.be/FPgOz6sqsuM

I’m not sure how much of this is fact or cap, but he makes some solid points from what I could understand

[heady thunder]

Allo is a good allrounder for any habitats really.
Didnt need insane amounts of food and water probs, versatile, it could fit in plenty of habitats today as long as there are some big animals to eat, maybe it could even manage in the places its remains are found today as long as it isnt too cold or not enough big prey like bison.

[astral kelp]

Humans with guns moment

[somber tartan]

Allo destroying the meta is pretty much what it’s known for at this point

[heady thunder]

I dont think they destroyed the meta, even with allo outnumbering everything, there were still other theropods close to their size coexisting with them, like cera, torvo. Tyranosaurs on the other hand, they were doing some trolling.

[somber tartan]

Tyrannosaurs be like: I came. I saw. I conquered

[sudden wind]

Yeah. Theropod skulls are very little kinetic, though Spinosaurids may have them more and also are obligate to engage it when they open their jaws.

[heady thunder]

Now this makes me think, was there any time period when some decently sized tyranosaurs and the late carchs like idk, Siats were competing?

[tough parcel]

Narp

[heady thunder]

Narp?

[somber tartan]

Hm. I never thought of something like that. Usually when I think of another theropod competing with a carch, I think spinosaurids, and even then it’s not much of a competition

[tough parcel]

No lol, it's from Hot Fuzz

But afaik, carcharodontosaurids all died out then tyrannosaurs came in

[heady thunder]

No dino battles, cringe

[somber tartan]

Yeah we went way off topic. But at least I got most of the answer I was looking for

[woeful falcon]

And obligate is thought to be a characteristic for all Spinosaurids right? Baryonychinae included?

[light osprey]

I’m so close to an answer

[heady thunder]

What answer youre seeking?

[light osprey]

I feel like it’s self apparent

[woeful falcon]

The question I asked lol

[honest wave]

Could anyone direct me to information on the fossil flora of Niger's Irhazer Shale? I'm struggling to find papers on anything other than animal fossils.

[light osprey]

It’s not much help but it’s a Bathonian formation so if you can find something adjacent with more information on it. That should be relatively insightful.

[clever sable]

So, do you think livyatan would have a dorsal fin? Or would it be like a sperm whale and have no dorsal fin?

[snow pivot]

No way youre a real person who is asking about somthin that specific and what for (i desperately want to know)

[honest wave]

Yeah I'm real lol, I'm just a big paleo nerd trying to do a very in-depth project requiring extensive research of the flora, fauna, and geography of mid-jurassic Niger.

[woeful falcon]

sperm whales do have dorsal fins, albeit quite reduced

[astral kelp]

How accurate is Dino Dana's rex out of 10?

[honest wave]

Unfortunately this section of my project revolves around the environment of spinophorosaurus, so it has to be pretty specific

[heady thunder]

A good 6 cos I quite like it

[honest wave]

It's okay, definitely recognizable but very monster-ified. Teeth should not be exposed, lacrimal horns are off, no idea why it has spikes on its neck, arms are too scrawny, hands are broken.

Basically it's clearly intended to be a tyrannosaurus, but there isn't any science put into it.

[jagged trellis]

p much, the middest rex ive seen so far

[honest wave]

not as mid as pot rex

[jagged trellis]

PoT rex is eh-bad zone, this rex is literally as mid as can be

[astral kelp]

There is also the movie version as well but it’s the same thing with the only thing being different is feathers

[clever sable]

It's like a 5, it kinda looks like a carcharadontosaurid imo

[jagged trellis]

so the general agreement is literally 5 then huh, there is one 4, one 6 and two 5

[honest wave]

Tbh this is probably worse, looks way scrawnier, still has broken hands, lacks proper lacrimal horns, and shouldn't have feathering this extensive. The feathers are pretty much in the right spot if it had them, but we know from skin impressions that if it did have feathers there, they would be way more sparse

[light osprey]

Most designs are stinky

[clever sable]

PP rex

[honest wave]

PT's rex mod is absolutely beautiful as well

[light osprey]

Even the bestest of designs have flaws

[clever sable]

Even PP rex

[rain root]

the exposed teeth are cuz its a pretty old show iirc but other than that yeah i agree

[woeful falcon]

resembles vlad's work. a lot of his stuff isn't lipped

pretty much all of it I think

[heady thunder]

Nah doesnt work like that, having a small flaw wont ruin a great design.

[woeful falcon]

his alberto

[light osprey]

Who’s design are we talking about

[honest wave]

Age isn't really a good excuse. There's a misconception that exposed teeth as a paleomedia trope is the result of old science, but there never was any point where science favored that idea. From the start of paleontology we have been depicting dinosaurs with lips, with only a few exceptions. Liplessness was popularized mostly due to JP.

[snow pivot]

Spinophorosaurus eh?
Elaborate

Oh god my chat just now updated
Why now and not hours ago

[snow pivot]

But spinophorosaurus

[light osprey]

Gravisaurian Sauropod

[astral kelp]

probably is his

[woeful falcon]

I'd say age is still a fine excuse. Lipped renditions weren't really widespread then. You could argue they still aren't

[snow pivot]

What are we thinkin the accuracy rating on this is

[elfin pulsar]

What’s an accurate argent size and an accurate quetz size, like a diagram

[snow python]

Is Epanterias still valid?

[compact leaf]

at the moment no, it’s a nomen dubium

it’s also been considered either a large allosaurus fragilis or just a different species of allosaurus, the holotype is non diagnostic though

[astral kelp]

you beat me to what i was going to say lol

[lavish frigate]

I’d put it at a solid 7 but I’m not a professional so idk anything lol

[honest wave]

why is there just a black hole where bathonian central-north african flora is supposed to be, i have been researching for hours and genuinely found nothing

[light osprey]

Mesozoic fossil record moment

[compact leaf]

what was the overall climate in the area like? if there’s a similar formation maybe you can work backwards from there

[light osprey]

I think that’s what they’re having trouble with

[clever sable]

Are there any mass estimates for the 12.5 meter estimate for livyatan?

[white matrix]

Hear me out
.

[light osprey]

It overlies the Tiouraren Formation, a depositional, swampy environment. Seasonal flooding in a braided river system

No flora listed as far as I can tell.

[white matrix]

Did torosaurus live with t rex?

[compact leaf]

yes

probably some habitat preference separating it from triceratops but it was in hell creek

[white matrix]

Was Trex was only in hell creek??

[light osprey]

Tyrannosaurus spans pretty much all of Laramidia

[white matrix]

I wonder what alectrosaurus main food sources were.

[light osprey]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iren_Dabasu_Formation take a look

[clever sable]

I love livy and megalodon

[white matrix]

Thanks

Apperantly im a alectrosaurus...lonely lizzard..

[chilly knot]

chilan bomb @white matrix

[next moss]

W

[light osprey]

Neovenatorid recon?

[white matrix]

Chilantaisaurus

[honest wave]

Seasonal warm and wet fluvial plain and lake system, iron-rich soil primarily composed of fine grain silt and clay

And I've been trying to look at the neighboring formations, but they all completely lack any sort of publishing on the flora found there

[light osprey]

Extend your range of extrapolation I guess

[honest wave]

Yeah I've started genuinely just making my way down the list of Bathonian flora found in Africa, but so far I am only finding stuff for the far north and far south despite the rich deposits elsewhere on the continent.

But I mean there absolutely are plant fossils there though, it's frustrating how little description work has been done on the ecosystems of these formations.

[light osprey]

They’re too busy going to same formations over and over again

[honest wave]

I guess so, but it's strange how there is genuinely zero publication on central African paleobotany

[light osprey]

Certainly a perplexing predicament

[pearl briar]

(all humans height used is 6 ft tall)
argy by fabio alejandro aka dragonthunders
quetz by @tough parcel

[elfin pulsar]

Preciate it

[pearl briar]

👍

[honest wave]

finally a decent argent comparison

[clever sable]

What are the most agreed upon length & mass estimates for livyatan and megalodon?

[astral kelp]

Rip our siats mod was based off Duncan’s siats, is his ok still?

[chilly knot]

Yeah absolutely

[covert lintel]

encounter: youtube commenter who thinks birds aren't dinosaurs because then humans would be reptiles
they're insisting that synapsids are reptiles

[light osprey]

Real and true, I can confirm I’m a reptile

[ancient crystal]

We are all Mark Zuckerberg

[covert lintel]

i wish i was a reptile ngl. seems like itd be a lot more convenient than being a mammal. and imagine if we were lucky enough to be birds

[light osprey]

Crazy how someone can think they know something, and then not know what they’re talking about

What’s incredible is how easily accessible Wikipedia is. Man’s really done 0 extra research.

[elfin pulsar]

Convenient?

[pearl briar]

if i was a reptile, i wish i can do camouflage & then turns invisible with my surroundings (yeah i wish i became a chameleon-like reptile)

[light osprey]

This took very long to find (sarcasm)

[covert lintel]

list of ways:
-(if lizard-type) shedding skin in larger chunks instead of tiny little flakes
-(if cold-blooded) excuse to sit around and do nothing for long periods of time. generally less pressure to be active
-(if avian) Birds
-no more periods it's all egg (sucks in a slightly different way)
-born immediately ready to eat instead of needing to rely on Nutrient Sweat
-tougher skin
-dont have to deal with facial expressions

[elfin pulsar]

What’s wrong w facial expressions, full on shedding sounds inconvenient too

[pearl briar]

if camouflaging type like chameleon?

[covert lintel]

well thats just facial expresions 2

[light osprey]

I like facial expression

[elfin pulsar]

Only reason you wouldn’t want facial expressions is if you don’t know how to interact with people, they’re super great parts of being social

[covert lintel]

also, no no no, they say wikipedia doesn't count, because teachers don't let you use it as a source!

i don't get it either.

[small geyser]

Aren’t reptiles in the middle of the shedding process in a vulnerable position?

[elfin pulsar]

If they don’t like wikipedia we can also always use the sources wikipedia itself uses

The whole “anything on wikipedia is bad” idea is stinky

[light osprey]

Where else are they going to find easily accessible cladistic information 👹👹👹

[covert lintel]

well, ya see, Autism, and thus I Do Not Care For It

[light osprey]

The Wikipedia agenda lie to the world and tell everyone birds are dinosaurs. Very real thing.

[small geyser]

The mods are probably going to scold us soon but I wish there was a biology channel here. I know there is animals and pets but that is mostly used for pets.

[clever sable]

I wish more people would just accept that birds are reptiles

[covert lintel]

yeah, i don't know why some people fight it so hard. it's just science, dude! it's good that birds are dinosaurs because it represents the continued advance of science!

[light osprey]

It’s also less finicky from a phylogenetic standpoint.

[small geyser]

I think it’s partly because most people are so used to sorting animals into their own little boxes so to speak.

[light osprey]

Wouldn’t be such a difficult thing to conceptualise if people would just depict them with feathers as a default 👹

Edit - of course there’s exceptions

[elfin pulsar]

People will probably just keep calling birds their own thing tbh

[astral kelp]

Birds are actually tigers

[clever sable]

What is the size of the average megalodon? Ik the largest specimen is 122 tons and 20 meters but whats the average?

[white matrix]

Wait wut? 122 tons?

[astral kelp]

big cats are stupidly muscular, its insane

[woeful falcon]

It's also very cool revelation that against mass extinction, dinosaurs lived on and flourished again

[light osprey]

Dominant animals? Maybe 🤔

[astral kelp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbm-P7jaa_c only a lion in his prime can enter the water to make a croc backoff

[pearl briar]

why felidae does this when they're heads got held back???

[covert lintel]

its bc the skin is being pulled back which makes their faces weird

[light osprey]

They channel the irritation energy

[covert lintel]

anyway update on the youtube guy: they've decided they don't need to provide a source because, for some reason, the burden of proof is on me, and not the guy insisting that modern cladistics actually allows organisms to evolve out of clades, which is not how that works at all.
luckily for me, wikipedia has citations!
here's the papers i found for this purpose, in case anyone else wants to have a look:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-009-0117-4
https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150490503026
(the second one is about reptiles specifically, but it does touch on synapsids Not being reptiles)

[light osprey]

Evolving out of a clade, if only

[covert lintel]

if that was possible, bats wouldn't be mammals, they're just too weird

[light osprey]

Bats are bats silly, not mammals

[ancient crystal]

Imo people refusing to provide sources is a very good indicator that they did a quick google search, saw they were wrong, and refused to accept that fact

[pearl briar]

bats are disease source (like covid)

[covert lintel]

i mean, considering this dude's acting like they're the king of cladistics and also specifically said i need to find "a single palaeontologist that believes synapsids should be reclassified outside of reptilia", i think they read one old science book and decided they were done researching forever
hell, both my main sources are from the 2000s! the oldest is 2004! this debate was already settled 20 years ago, where did this guy get their info from??

[light osprey]

People like narrow vision I suppose, ignorance is bliss and all that

[woeful falcon]

don't need to know cladistics when T. rex has a wishbone, which only birds have

[astral kelp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g1iKg80p9M&t=614s

[ancient crystal]

Ah the toothless T. rex paleoart, we meet again

[light osprey]

Anyone know of any big maastrichtian Ornithurans?

[astral kelp]

I love raptorchatter.

[clever sable]

What are your opinions on spinosaurus?

[astral kelp]

Weird, annoying to deal with, changes all the time

[clever sable]

How about it's lifestyle? Like wading VS aquatic pursuit predator?

[astral kelp]

it def wasn't wading with those stubby legs

[covert lintel]

coulda been floating. sittin on the water's surface and doin a heron thing there

[ancient crystal]

And I doubt it was doing much aquatic pursuing with that sail

[clever sable]

Well it definitely wasn't chasing prey underwater with that sail

[pearl briar]

abominations

[light osprey]

Is Antarcticavis big?

Relatively speaking? Does anyone know birb stuff

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/we-dont-know-right-now-right-now-rn-we-dont-know-no-idea-gif-15089138

[astral kelp]

arent there various birb people here lol?

[light osprey]

Shame

Ight time for some wishy washy Chonksaurus special estimate

[ancient crystal]

I mean, aren't all paleo nerds technically birb people of some description?

[covert lintel]

im a known birdliker but unfortunately i dont know anything about antarcticavis' size

[woeful falcon]

birds stink

[buoyant bramble]

Biblically accurate sinoceratops

[light osprey]

You stink

[woeful falcon]

yeah. I sure do. and so do birds.

[astral kelp]

you read my mind I was literally going to say that

[light osprey]

Here’s the material I think

[pearl briar]

rizzlerceratops

[white matrix]

My life would've been so much better had I not seen this image

[pearl briar]

if it's black bear, fights back
if it's brown/grizzly bear, lay down
if it's polar bear, goodnight

[white matrix]

true

[buoyant bramble]

🤨

[viscid surge]

Im pretty sure it’s “black, fight back, brown lay down, white say goodnight” but idk maybe that could be misinterpreted or sum

[west drum]

Yeah it’s this

[compact leaf]

that’s what they say but always fight back no matter what kind of bear, if you lay down you’re just making their job easier

[light osprey]

I think that depends on what situation you’ve found yourself in with whatever bear you’re with

[tiny holly]

Yeah fighting back against a brown (grizzly) bear sounds like a bad idea. In particular if the reason its attacking you in the first place is because its a mother with cubs. All you're doing is affirming yourself as a potential threat to her cubs, so now she needs to eliminate you

[snow pivot]

Opinions

[covert lintel]

yeah. standing your ground might work against a grizzly that's contemplating eating you (fighting is... probably inadvisable if you can just scare it off instead), but if it sees you as a threat you absolutely do Not want to reinforce that perception

[snow pivot]

Bear sprayg

[covert lintel]

yeah looks about right

[dusky galleon]

Speaking of fights could three Rugops hypothetically put up a fight against a full grown adult Ampelosaurus?

[clever sable]

Idk, probably not but I could be wrong

[white matrix]

No

[clever sable]

Was ichthyovenators tail more like a paddle or a sail? I'm pretty sure it was a sail

[heady thunder]

Do we even have ichthyovenator tail remains?

[clever sable]

Yes

[stray wren]

it was probably more paddle like

[clever sable]

Huh, that's kinda weird seeing as spinos was probably more sail like, anyways I'm heading to bed, it's super late, GN

[snow pivot]

How do ichthyovenator and concavenator connect pieces

[frail robin]

All dinosaurs are actually puzzle pieces that all connect to form the outline of John Hammond

[snow pivot]

ZAMN

[heady thunder]

Idk if it still remains 100% correct.
Then again the default answer from google isnt always the best too.

[elder kettle]

Alright I see now

[heady thunder]

Yeah the guy could gut you pretty badly if it felt like it

[heady thunder]

Ayooo

[lunar copper]

wait so, dinosaurs could potentially reproduce by themselves?

[covert lintel]

some of them already do! there's been two different reports of unfertilized californa condor eggs hatching, both from the san diego zoo, a few years apart. neither of the chicks lived to sexual maturity, but it does still indicate that some birds are capable of producing viable offspring using parthenogenesis, and it's pretty likely that some non-avian dinosaurs could do the same! (how many could do it, though, is another question)

[scenic flame]

It's extremely rare

[pearl briar]

does a 7.5-8 meters long & 1.3-2.1 tons carno is still accurate?

[lunar copper]

okay that's pretty cool

[white matrix]

8 ish meters and 2 tons

[tiny holly]

Turkeys have been known to exhibit parthenogenesis quite a lot, at least compared to other birds. Still rare and the offspring usually aren't viable, but you do sometimes get one that survives just fine to adulthood. But turkeys are also just really weird in general so its honestly not surprising

[snow python]

Which one is older Acro or Tyrannotitan?

[pearl briar]

TTT

[snow python]

Than wouldn't ttt have a more allosaurus like appearance, with longer neck?

[tranquil quartz]

?

[snow python]

Since its a primitive carcharodontosaur i'd expect tyrannotitan to look more like concavenator and neovenator than giga and mapu

[tough parcel]

It's decently complete, so no

[light osprey]

It’s still in that tribe so why would it exhibit characteristics of another tribe

[covert lintel]

not really. this is still a large cretaceous carcharodontosaurid. some recent papers place it in giganotosaurini, even.

[woeful falcon]

Older doesn't always mean more primitive

[white matrix]

It’s also not primitive, it’s still a giganotosaurine lol

[glacial silo]

Tyrannotitan and Giganotosaurus look almost the exact same

[tough parcel]

Cause they're used to fill in the gaps of each other

[heady thunder]

Gaping carchs

[tough parcel]

Heck, I'll eat you all

[clever sable]

Acro is even more complete fr

[astral kelp]

hey falcon would saurolophus have front feet like edmonto here?

[sage cave]

A lot of reptiles can have partho babies it’s super rad

[compact leaf]

possibly a little different but for the most part yes

[sage cave]

That makes we wonder, what other mummy Dinos do we have other than that and the ankylosaur

[tough parcel]

The issue is that hadrosaur hands do not follow anything, however iirc Edmonto hands are incredibly special

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2023.2213287

[astral kelp]

Gotcha, bc I want to be quite accurate for the Saurolophus mod we’re making so I was curious if that would be a good reference for the front feet

[tough parcel]

I'll go looking, but don't copy-paste Edmonto feet

[astral kelp]

I know Emily Stepp did a study on it

[clever sable]

What is the bite force of tyrannosaurus rex? I've been hearing 2 different numbers mainly, 8,000 PSI and 12,500 PSI, what one is the current number?

[compact leaf]

they’re similar across pretty much all hadrosaurs but not copy pasted, basically same sort of hoofish formula with some differences

[astral kelp]

Pretty sure sakamato made a paper on theropod bite forces, you can find Rex’s there, it’s pretty accurate

[clever sable]

Well where am I supposed to find that?

[astral kelp]

https://peerj.com/articles/13731/

[tough parcel]

Oh btw, don't use Fadeno's Saurolophus skeletal

[clever sable]

Has fadeno just lost all credibility? Because recently I've seen a ton of people saying his skeletals are inaccurate

[tough parcel]

To be fair, a lot of his skeletals were "firsts" for him, not unusual for first skeletals to be wonky

[astral kelp]

Is there any better one, we used fadenos lol.

Time to restart ig

[clever sable]

What ones are accurate and what ones are inaccurate? More specifically would you consider his deinosuchus skeletal accurate?

[tough parcel]

I'm looking for one for ya, been told GSP or GAT's (edited), but dunno if anyone has that yet

[woeful falcon]

is that so for both of the species

[tough parcel]

I'd assume so

Also Fred, I dunno, but his Deinosuchus does need edits (might be too big)

Also holy heck, the timer went from a great 20 seconds to a minute, what is this

[astral kelp]

Ty.

[compact leaf]

every time we’re happy they raise it, it’s like they’re toying with us

[tough parcel]

I know right??? They don't need to touch this channel in the slightest, no-one comes here 😭

[heady thunder]

No one until its a Rex vs Trike debate

[woeful falcon]

so uh, who wins trike vs rex

[astral kelp]

Your mom

[heady thunder]

I knew Rex had it

[astral kelp]

@tough parcel I found it 😭 (GATS)

[tough parcel]

Needs to be edited, so gimme a sec

[astral kelp]

Alr

[tough parcel]

"A sec", might be a bit longer cause NO-ONE'S RESPONDING

[heady thunder]

He is the one who knocks.
Tho no one answers.

[quaint isle]

Is that Saurolophus?

[astral kelp]

Yes

[quaint isle]

Nice. I feel like everybody overlooks that dino and they just pay attention to Parasaurolophus

Can I get the suggestion link?

I can't find it lol

[tranquil quartz]

#suggestions

[quaint isle]

Thanks!

[clever sable]

How accurate is this chart (other than livyatan)

[ancient crystal]

The meg looks a little small according to our current understanding, but that is a great design imo, love the coloration

[clever sable]

Yeah, it is a couple years old

[light osprey]

Mosasaurs is slightly too long

[magic monolith]

likely a 50/50 but think of it this way
if the rex gets the ambush,then rex
if the trike sees it,then it will likely win

[white matrix]

If the microraptor was alive..what sound would it make when i slam it againsed the wall..would it squeak?

[light osprey]

How so

[lunar copper]

guys rex has intelligence and dp so it wins, tiktok told me

[white matrix]

The trike actually couldve been front heavy,it probably be able to turn in time to atleast get a hit on the rex. Like in prehistoric planet we see a rex that has killed a trike.but he was injured with a bad scrape suggestin that the trike was able too turn fast enough to scrape the rex .but it was to late

[magic monolith]

right
does that mean that trike would win more times then

[light osprey]

What is “winning”

[magic monolith]

killing the opponent or forcing it to back off

[white matrix]

Most likely the trex would have a slight more chance of winning because it possibly couldve been heavier than the trike.the trike would indeed damage the rex but one bite on the leg or hip and its doomed either way..one neck hit and auto gone

Any questions?

[light osprey]

Triceratops is a prey item for Tyrannosaurus… it’s a self evident premise that it must be at least somewhat well equipped to hunt the thing

[white matrix]

Not to mention trex bite marks have also been found on torosaurus edmontosaurus.and that one sauropod from prehistoric planet 2 that the name i cant remember

[jagged trellis]

i mean lions are well equipped for their prey and get man handled alot( GRANTED, alot of said prey is far bigger compared to body size) so id say its a closer fight than that but id favor the trike...that is if it came to that, most of the time would probably just be scaring each other off since: why risk it

[clever sable]

Rex VS trike is a pretty even matchup

[white matrix]

The problem is when the rex bites the trike the so called rhino of the cretaceous.it panicks and tends ti swing in every direction.not to mention if the trex does die if it gets one bite on the trike..infection finishes it

[tulip dove]

We can all agree on that if Triceratops saw the Tyrannosaurus coming, Triceratops would have the upper hand, because I'd imagine that getting around that head would be difficult, but if the Rex gets the ambush on it then it is in Rex's favor

[clever sable]

I think you underestimate the immune systems of creatures, most creatures will survive getting bit if they are able to get away

[elfin pulsar]

Isn’t there a fossil of an edmonto that survived a rex bite to the face or smthn like that, swear I heard smthn like that before

[white matrix]

Im just saying infection can get them over time if that wound dosent heal quick enough

[jagged trellis]

id favor the trike abit more since the frontal defense and very clear case of a arms race, but way closer than lets say a wildebeest who is fighting vs a lion namely because well: size( seeing how wildebeest are around 450-600 vs a lions 300-400), rex and trike are like what a ton apart or so, still a close match up compared to alot of predator prey relationships

[clever sable]

We have multiple fossils of trikes surviving bites from rexes, you are thinking of a deep wound in the tail of an Edmonto caused by rex

[heady thunder]

Even if it was a 50/50 a rex would never risk it unless it was desperate.
And if it was so desperate that it would take a trike head on, both would not come out looking pretty.

[elfin pulsar]

The way you worded it was one bite = death tho, which isn’t true

@clever sable ahhh gotcha

[jagged trellis]

that goes for both of em though is the thing

[clever sable]

Rex would probably risk it, but I don't think it would be actively looking for trikes to hunt either

[light osprey]

What does it actively hunt then

[white matrix]

I forgot how powerfull the bite force of a rex is but...a bite on the head from a rex on a edmonto???

[clever sable]

Edmonto probably

[elfin pulsar]

I was thinking of tail apparently

[heady thunder]

I mean going head on without the element of surprise.
Plus what would it hunt then? Trike was the most abundant prey species there and we have plenty of proof of them doing so to even adults.

[light osprey]

It would be quite the peculiar scenario if it could only hunt a single animal it lived with.

[tulip dove]

Probably would depend on the prey population

[clever sable]

Well it could hunt multiple animals, trike probably just wasn't what it hunted the most (probably)

[tiny holly]

Oh god oh no are we actually doing this debate

[little mauve]

Triceratops was overwhelmingly the most common large animal in its environment. Edmontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus were roughly as common as one another, Triceratops was definitely an abundant and common prey item. In fact it's probably a big part of the reason for T. rex's extreme anatomy

[white matrix]

I wonder what a trike would taste like..

[heady thunder]

What about torosaurus, I always see it gets sidelined from the convo

[light osprey]

Torosaurus is much rarer in the fossil record

[tulip dove]

Always thought that Edmontosaurus was the most common animal there, well ya know what they, you learn something new every day

[elfin pulsar]

No guys remember t rex is obviously only a scavenger

[heady thunder]

I called it, this place only gets traffic for the rex v trike convo and discussing the accuracies of the roster

[light osprey]

What we do have is something amalgamating to the average sized Triceratops iirc.

[white matrix]

Guys dont forget the ankylos were everywhere...they were fully gray tho and hard.not breathing. With no legs or head and smooth!

[heady thunder]

Sadge, toro is way cooler.

[tiny holly]

Tbf iirc toro is known from higher elevations? So it may be it simply lived in environments lese condusive towards fossilisation

[light osprey]

Interesting

[heady thunder]

Based rare mountain bull dino

[light osprey]

Hey, I remember asking way back about dinosaurs found in non-fluvial environments. Any other genera in a similar predicament?

[tulip dove]

First off all, why would ya do that

[tiny holly]

Preservation bias is a sucker it makes it very difficult, id argue impossible, to actually figure out the balance of an ecosystem

[heady thunder]

Itd cry if you did it hard enough

[light osprey]

I bet those pesky neornithischians are more common than we think 🧐

[heady thunder]

Preservation bias <<<<<<< Human bias

[compact leaf]

with some environments at least we can sort of work backwards just based off niches, we can kind of do that with parts of the morrison

[light osprey]

Yixian is that special little cove of being nicely well understood 😊

[compact leaf]

you gotta love it when a formation gives you a lot of stuff with clear niches

[tiny holly]

Itll always be flawed though smaller animals make up the majority of an ecosystem, funnily enough, but also fossilise far less frequently. I think if we could go back in time we'd find a huge diversity of small dinosaurs that are seemingly nonexistant in these environments

[white matrix]

Who wants microraptor fried crispy meat?

[light osprey]

Whatever you do find, just pretend the fossil record says they’re everywhere 😞

[tiny holly]

Im gonna go out on a limb here and say that tyrannosaurus in fact likely didnt outnumber ornithomimosaurs is all im sayin

[white matrix]

https://tenor.com/view/fried-chicken-chicken-fried-cooking-pan-gif-3377398 who wants fried microrator wings?

[woeful falcon]

Microrator

[tranquil quartz]

why would you want to know this, may I ask 💀

[white matrix]

So i knew before i did it..and cooked this fried microraptor a bit above.

[white matrix]

I feel like these are a bit skewed

[little mauve]

Well the interesting thing about the Hell Creek Project (which gave us those percentages) is that it was an extremely broad sampling of mostly microfossil material so non-geographic preservation bias is weaker than say sampling museum collections or partial skeletons etc. Similar patterns occur in the Morrison with a surprisingly low abundance of smaller dinosaurs based on what we expect from contemporary ecosystems. That probably is due partly to preservation but stuff like ontogenetic niche shifting & R-type breeding also suggests their population dynamics would be quite different than we might intuit based on the modern world

[heady thunder]

Uhm, can you put that in PoT terms pls?

[little mauve]

Uh...... Lots of people like to play as T. rex but very few make it to adulthood

[heady thunder]

So, the environment didnt like the small dinos got it

[little mauve]

The young of large dinosaurs were so abundant they may have been preventing species that were small as adults from being more common

[tiny holly]

Oh thats definitely a factor. Sampling like this is just the population as a whole, not just adult population which is usually what we consider when discussing ecosystem structure

[heady thunder]

Oooooh, makes sense actually with dinos having a like, more indenpendent growth thingy so a baby rex would be put in early in the arms race and the small sized carnies suffered.

[little mauve]

Exactly, and that's why dinosaur ecosystems are so funky.

[white matrix]

Did microraptors eat grass and meat?

[little mauve]

You have one genus filling multiple niches as it ages, ecologically it's like being multiple species over the course of growth. It's very strange

[heady thunder]

Do any species today do that?

[little mauve]

Crocodylians, komodo dragons, most fish

[heady thunder]

Sharks?
Plus dont crocodilians fill the same niche? Big aquatic predator, small aquatic predator?

[little mauve]

Niche has a lot more to do with your place in the food chain than that as well as your relative abundance. So no they transition from arthropod eaters to fish eaters to large vertebrate eaters and become rarer apex predators as they age. Komodo dragons might be a clearer example, they start out climbing trees and eating insects before gradually adapting to moving around and hunting on the ground

[light osprey]

It seems that sort of ecology is not the most abundant in dinosaur/Mesozoic ecosystems though, cause we find plenty of variously sized predators in other deposits

[heady thunder]

Dont abelisaurids, tyranosaurs and carchs have like, basically a chokehold on the carni populations at places where theyre found?

[white matrix]

They’re the apex predators in ecosystems they’re in, at least the derived ones

[light osprey]

I know some late Maastrichtian ecosystems with tyrannosaurs typically have genera operating in different size ranges, regardless if those are just more contemporary tyrannosaurs or something else entirely

[little mauve]

T. rex is the most famous example but ontogenetic niche shifting was probably the norm for most dinosaurs. Hell Creek's lack of mid sized theropods is an anomaly that I don't think we have a really good answer for yet, including niche shifting. It's just weird.

[light osprey]

Wouldn’t it just be all of maastrichtian Laramidia not having a midsized theropod? Afaik there’s nothing anywhere until you go to Appalachia or Alaska

[little mauve]

Yep and only one large theropod, which is almost just as weird

[tranquil quartz]

How likely that there was a mid sized theropods kicking about in Hells Creek but we just don’t have any fossils of it? I mean I suppose adolescent Tyrannosaurus’ could fufill the niche of a medium sized theropod.

[light osprey]

There was almost one, a big eudromaeosaur, then it ended up being a mess of a genus

I’m not sure even if Dakotaraptor’s presence absolves the issue

[little mauve]

That's the running theory but I'm not totally convinced. It's a very well sampled and well studied formation so if there were mid sized theropods of any significant abundance we'd probably have some evidence for it. However there could have been a rare genus that lived in some poorly preserved corner of the ecosystem possibly, that's been floated before for Dakotaraptor

[light osprey]

Pff who needs the Hell Creek when you have the Prince Creek. Less genera but a more unique ecosystem

[heady thunder]

What lived there?

[light osprey]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Creek_Formation take a look

[woeful falcon]

prince creek is coolio

[heady thunder]

No big theropod, sadge.

[little mauve]

Nanuqsaurus was the big theropod

[light osprey]

Lol I was about to say

[heady thunder]

What I wanted to say more accurately is a megatheropod I guess.

Wait scratch that nanuq seems to have been bigger then I thought.

[light osprey]

It depends. I’m not sure if it is categorically a megatheropod, even using a higher estimate

[heady thunder]

Yeah, its like what, 3 tons at high estimates.

[light osprey]

They’re just length estimates I think. No mass per say to assign to it.

The actual material (for the larger specimen) we have only scales to 7 metres iirc.

[heady thunder]

Isnt it 9?

[light osprey]

I think that’s just a guesstimate for an adult.

It wouldn’t need to be much bigger, the edmontosaurus and pachyrhinosaurus species hailing from there are not particularly large

[little mauve]

It was big enough to be the top predator, we can say that for sure lol

[heady thunder]

So this chart isnt really accurate then I guess

[little mauve]

I think the larger estimates are becoming more popular based on undescribed adult material, who knows though without the description.

[light osprey]

At least the prince creek has a mid-sized predator (kind of)

[little mauve]

It seems to be quite rich in spite of the 120 days of darkness per year, truly no modern analogue

[light osprey]

Snow Hill Island gets close

[heady thunder]

Dinos too based to care about daylight

[little mauve]

Nah, way too little vegetation no?

[light osprey]

I thought just referring to the fauna

[tough parcel]

[heady thunder]

Definitely allo

[light osprey]

It’s me

[tough parcel]

Wrong, it's T. rex again

[woeful falcon]

from what I can tell, 9m comes from the material being described as "closer to other Tyrannosaurs like Albertosaurus". I didn't see a 9m estimate from Druckenmiller himself so I've come to assume that came from people defaulting to 9m as the maximum estimate for their adults because that's sort of where the other tyrannosaurs are at their largest. Scaling of the material in question results in an animal between 7-8m, but this is without proper description or measurement I think. Unless I'm wrong in that

this also presumes said material is what is described as Alberto/adult sized. Based on what the material is said to be and the various skeletals of Nanuq with comparable material (as well as videos of the material), I currently believe it's referring to the same stuff. Without a proper description though who can say

another presumption, the new material is truly mature or full grown lol. We need a description damn it

kenyan giant comes first tho

[light osprey]

No, Nanuq first 👹

[tranquil quartz]

KG>

[woeful falcon]

dark knight has the right idea

[compact leaf]

the mountain of brachiosaurids has been waiting longer than either of them ;-;

[woeful falcon]

they can continue that

what's another 10 years

[light osprey]

How about this, none of them get a description and we do a reevaluation of Maastrichtian India deposits because those are a mess

[woeful falcon]

no

[tranquil quartz]

big giant from kenya!