paleontology

[white matrix]

Didn’t think so

[opal bluff]

Mmmmm time to cook

[hallow spear]

Yes

Im 90% sure that fadseno didnt release his tylo publicly

[novel atlas]

https://twitter.com/SirBlameson/status/1683390828901961729?s=20

Blame (@SirBlameson)

Yutyrannus huaili, revised skeletal

Better description in my deviantart, but overall, significantly better than my previous one

Skull reconstructed by @DanPalaeon1

Likes

365

Twitter · Jul 24, 2023, 8:17 AM

https://twitter.com/RizkiusMaulanae/status/1674792235962077186

M. Rizky M. (@RizkiusMaulanae)

Since it came to my attention that this chart became quite popular, time to release a sequel; there's always a bigger fish. Dark blue is OMNH 1331, one of the large Oklahoma apatosaurine materials that according to Wedel might be Brontosaurus.

Likes

312

Twitter · Jun 30, 2023, 2:49 PM

[white matrix]

You can get it using the holotype as well, It depends on your scale differential for the holotype and neotype

[cold cedar]

That's a shame

[light osprey]

Anyone know what kind of fish could’ve been in shoals in the Maastrichtian?

[red cape]

Can you see it?

[undone parcel]

enchodus?

[loud kayak]

What's that from?

[compact leaf]

looks like sauropod footprints

[opal bluff]

Enchodus faujasi, many smaller sized pycnodonts including smaller species of Anomoeodus (such as foriri) and Phacodus, and Hoplopteryx or any berciform fish that existed back then and using modern relatives to compare in terms of ecology

Especially the last one being Hoplopteryx being related to modern day beryciform fish of today's oceans including reefs and bathayal regions. @light osprey

[light osprey]

Reefs and bathayal regions? Interesting

[opal bluff]

If ya include slimeheads and alfonsinos, hence why I included bathayal for some species

[astral kelp]

Oh yeah tried to dm you about the penza/quadrate GDI but I don't think you got it, was going to ask whats the difference between along the curve and along the centra (granted I know what a centra is)

[honest wave]

Does anyone know which study has the most up-to-date and reliable cladogram of macronaria?

I'm far less familiar with sauropods than theropods

[compact leaf]

how far up do you want to go? camarasauridae up to brachiosauridae is pretty simple and agreed upon but as soon as you hit basal titanosaurs it gets messy fast

[honest wave]

Only up to titanosauriformes, I'm mostly concerned with the relations of the largest groups in macronaria

[compact leaf]

the wikipedia trees are usually pretty good honestly and list their source, I would start there and compare the latest papers

if you have any specific questions though I can do my best to answer, sauropods are what I know the most about

where you'll really start to hit a wall is somphospondylidae, probably half of the stuff in there really doesn't belong but it got thrown in there because it looks a bit weird for its original family

[honest wave]

yippee

I'm probably going to use D'Emic 2012, unless anyone protests to that.

This is being used for a cladogram of greater dinosauria, if anyone is wondering. It's a personal project that I'm doing mostly for fun, but I intend to use it as a tool for personal study.

[honest wave]

First run of sauropodomorpha, if anyone sees any mistakes or inaccuracies, please ping me.

[sullen cairn]

Not necessarily an inaccuracy but it wouldn't hurt to include Turiasauria

[honest wave]

I will, but I'm struggling to find good info on its relations within eusauropoda. Do you have any resources I can use?

Based on what I could find, this is my current understanding of its placement. If anyone can correct me on this, please do so.

[compact leaf]

it's a really weird group that seems to have lasted an absurd length of time so it's placement is pretty funky but that seems about right based on current understanding

[honest wave]

Alright, thanks

[gleaming dew]

is the purusaurus basically a big caiman?

[frigid coral]

what
no, they are separated by millions upon millions of years, puru is not a caiman afaik

[honest wave]

nah bro its a lizard :)

(it is actually in caimaninae though, so yeah it's more a caiman than anything)

[gleaming dew]

purussaurus brasiliensis, they say it's part of the caiman family but the caiman ik are super small i'm wondering how they are so small but nile crocs are so big and they are further related

[covert lintel]

incorrect. it's a caiman

[honest wave]

There is always variation within groups. Just because modern caimans are generally small doesn't mean past genera couldn't be big.

Size is not typically used as an indicator of relation

[covert lintel]

yep. modern dinosaurs are often very tiny, but some of their ancient relatives (sauropods) were easily the largest terrestrial animals ever

[gleaming dew]

but they were the biggest its so weird and interesting that they are the smallest now

[honest wave]

Things change. Moz made a good point regarding dinosaurs, where the smallest known dinosaur is the bee hummingbird.

[gleaming dew]

maybe because there aren't that many large herbivores in South America as they used to have? but America and Africa still do so hence the size or s*** happens?

[honest wave]

Prey size isn't the only factor. Competing predators in the same niche can cause changes in size to be necessary.

[covert lintel]

decided to try tracking down a source that outright states puru is a caiman and. well. have fun interpreting this i guess
(source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8428266/)
(what's really important here is purusaurus being under caimaninae, which is The Caiman Zone. caiman (the genus) is different from caimans as a whole group btw)

[light osprey]

Some of them also got small in the Mesozoic

[honest wave]

And ancestrally, pseudosuchians were just lanky little guys. Things can always change.

[covert lintel]

also, for what it's worth, bigger isn't always better - small animals are often more resilient to change in their environment, as they need less food to survive and reproduce, and can support larger populations.

[honest wave]

Absolutely. There's a reason why almost every terrestrial animal that survived the K-Pg was a small generalist.

[covert lintel]

ngl i don't know why i didn't think of that example, but yeah, that's a very good case of being small paying off.
going back to caimans briefly, purussaurus was good at what it was doing, for sure, but clearly that's not the Optimal Niche for caimans these days. if they're almost all really small, that might not be because they can't get big anymore, but because there's not any benefit to getting big right now. sometimes staying small is just The Strat. who knows, maybe the quaternary extinction will eventually leave caimans as the most diverse crocodilians... but on the other hand, most of the other crocodilian groups seem to be doing fine

[honest wave]

aight check this out 😎

I also have neotheropoda, but I did it a while ago so it's messier. Also it gets super compressed as a png

Here is neotheropoda as a PDF if you want the less compressed version. I drew special attention to the surviving modern linneages, marked by saturated colors, white text, and bold lines.

[gleaming dew]

sorry to leave, had to take an anatomy test but all true, it used to be a big scary guy though. hope it gets screen time in the game

[honest wave]

Puru isn't planned for the game though

[gleaming dew]

ik just a thought tho

[clever sable]

PT is making it though

[honest wave]

Ah, I thought they cancelled that one.

[light osprey]

The Neovenatoridae and Megaraptora made me laugh

[clever sable]

It's still in the roster chart iirc

[honest wave]

Literally had to revise their placement more than any other grouping. Drove me more insane than titanosauria did today.

[sullen cairn]

I mean technically there's still a bunch of titanosaur clades you could do

[light osprey]

I’ve only recently spent time with Megaraptora only to learn they just float around in Coelurosauria

[honest wave]

nah bro i value my mental health too much for that right now, maybe some other time (though if you could provide me with some good resources to use for adding them thatd be swag)

[sullen cairn]

but who doesn't want to hear about saltosauridae, saltosaurinae, and saltosaurini?

[light osprey]

Someone save Titanosauria

[sullen cairn]

oh and saltosauroidea

[honest wave]

The issue is that you could arguably go into a bajillion -idaes and -inaes, even more so with the -inis. I will certainly try to be more specific with sauropodomorpha at some point though since I can afford to clutter the image some more.

[sullen cairn]

tyrannosauroidea has the same issue where you have way too many clades comprising like two taxa

[honest wave]

Yeah, I was only really willing to go so in depth with neotheropoda because the notable variation and public knowledge of the contained taxa is probably more in depth than any other section of dinosauria. I intend to use these as a quick reference tool so it needs a lot of stuff. I will probably declutter the birds at some point.

[light osprey]

Ok, you need to make some for Ornithischia now because that is truly confusing stuff

[sullen cairn]

the 2000 subclades of cerapoda

[honest wave]

I am dreading ornithischia but I do intend to cover most/all of archosauria so I kind of have to

[light osprey]

Do it for me 🫡

[sullen cairn]

for reference the entirety of dryptosauridea is dryptosaurus and dryptosauridae gen. et sp. nov.?

[honest wave]

Yeah

[sullen cairn]

and for sauropods there's khebbashia which for some reason exists even though it's just slightly more exclusive rebbachisauridae

some clades can really just be ignored and nobody will ever care

[honest wave]

If you could direct me to some papers on it that would really be helpful. You know far more about sauropoda than I do so I trust you more than I do myself 😓

[sullen cairn]

I just use mortimer and double check the source if need be
https://theropoddatabase.com/Sauropodomorph cladogram.html

[honest wave]

Oh man that's a really good one, definitely going to make use of that

[sullen cairn]

yeah mortimer's a literal saint

[honest wave]

my man is gonna out-compete me with my project 😭

[sullen cairn]

powered by mortimer

although usually I just browse the theropod database looking for weird obscure unnamed crap which can be fun only to then realize the citation is some paper from the 60s I have zero way of looking at

[honest wave]

Honestly that bothers me more than any paywall, it's awful how many papers have just been lost

[sullen cairn]

Honestly the best part of online journals

[light osprey]

Alamosaurus placed outside of Saltasauridae, neat

[honest wave]

Just to be clear though, paywalls should be illegal. The above statement was not me excusing their existence.

[sullen cairn]

I love scihub

And then Larramendi's sauropod books's good too because a) pretty pictures and b) lots of unnamed things mentioned that would be really hard find in literature anywhere else although I have no clue how screwy the size estimates are

[honest wave]

If you are referring to something in my cladogram, I primarily used González Riga 2018 and D'Emic 2012 for macronaria

I don't see anything in there that would place alamo outside of saltasauridae though

Specifically alamosaurus is pretty far within saltasauridae

[light osprey]

I was just reading through the cladogram Table posted

[honest wave]

Oh the database one, yeah that's interesting. It seems they referenced a lot of older and less extensive studies, so maybe that's why.

[light osprey]

Is there like a list of Lithostrotians with preserved skulls? I can’t find anything

[honest wave]

No clue, but I hope so

[sullen cairn]

sauropod
preserved skulls

haha no

[light osprey]

Do you know any taxa with preserved skulls nestled in that funky lil clade

[sullen cairn]

nemegtosaurus is just a skull iirc

[honest wave]

Oh hey, heres a nice one https://www.shutterstock.com/shutterstock/photos/1675634872/display_1500/stock-photo-north-vancouver-bc-canada-mar-shelf-at-a-supermarket-mostly-empty-with-only-a-few-1675634872.jpg

[light osprey]

This is cruel and unusual punishment 😐

[sullen cairn]

looks rapetosaurus has some partial skulls too

[light osprey]

Let’s see what we’ve got

Hmmm

[honest wave]

"If I had a nickel for every time I found a lithostrotian with a preserved skull, I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice"

[light osprey]

No Lognkosaurian skulls

[sullen cairn]

so about the saltasaurid alamosaurus it seems that alamosaurus likes to hop around true saltasaurid and being slightly more basal but as per González Riga 2018 it's a saltasaurid and I don't know about any more recent phylogenies

[light osprey]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772019.2016.1183150 I found this paper on it. Slightly older unfortunately

[sullen cairn]

yeah it seems kinda volatile

[honest wave]

There always has to be one that refuses to sit nice in the phylogeny

[light osprey]

It would be strange if it was still considered to be close to Opisthocoelicaudia though

[sullen cairn]

granted in the 2018 one the rest of saltasauridae is a massive polytomy so that's fun too

you should put gualicho and deltadromeus and bahariasaurus and co. in that theropod cladogram

[honest wave]

[sullen cairn]

and chilesaurus

[light osprey]

Damn, there are like… no Maastrichtian Titanosaurians further north than Brazil

[honest wave]

They don't really have their own grouping so it'd be kind of hard to place them nicely. Same reason I didn't have eoraptor in the sauropodomorpha cladogram. They may be fairly significant taxa, but it would be hard to include them in a simplistic quick-ref cladogram.

[sullen cairn]

exactly why you should do it

[honest wave]

Also gualicho could be anything from a neovenatorid or something close to a megaraptoran, which is clearly a sign to leave it alone as far as I am concerned.

[light osprey]

I’m gonna assume it’s more likely this guy (Alamosaurus) is a radiation of Lognkosaurians cause that geographically makes more sense 🥱

[sullen cairn]

there isn't much dinosaur material north of brazil period as well though (in south america)

[light osprey]

Yeah

[sullen cairn]

larramendi puts it as a saltasaurid as well in 2020

[light osprey]

Where in Saltasauridae

[honest wave]

just realized i spelled saltasauridae with an o in my cladogram

[light osprey]

Dreadnoughtus in Saltasauridae too?

I’m dumb Aeolosaurini are in Saltasauridae

[sullen cairn]

yeah larramendi can be wacky

[honest wave]

The taxa contained within colossosauria have traditionally been placed within a large grouping defined by its relation to saltasaurus, so that may be why.

[sullen cairn]

saltasauridae also has bonatitan which is tiny but gave me a headache over trying to figure out if it was adult or not

[light osprey]

Larramendi’s makes more sense than Alamosaurus being nestled into Opisthocoelicaudiinae

[honest wave]

Have there been any studies analyzing the remains for determining age?

[light osprey]

Titanosauria giving me a headache 🤕

[sullen cairn]

It’s a whole mess give me a sec to see what I wrote down about it

[honest wave]

Man, everything between sauropodomorpha and sauropodiformes is so based. I love this guy so much.

[light osprey]

Hmm are we suuuure Alamosaurus isn’t closer to Futalognkosaurus 🤔

[honest wave]

Look bro, it's in titanosauria. Nothing is certain and nothing is sacred.

[light osprey]

Alright… This clade stinks 😔

[sullen cairn]

"Two braincases are preserved for Bonatitan, both corresponding to subadult individuals as suggested by visible sutures that are otherwise obscured by fusion in most adult dinosaurs" (Carabajal, 2012).

"This braincase is slightly larger than the one originally assigned to specimen MACN-PV RN 821, although it seems to correspond to an earlier ontogenetic stage(because the sutures are not obscured by fusion) (Salgado et al. 2014).

"The sutures and the vascularization marks are not visible in the endocranial casts of Bonatitan" (García et al. 2015).

And those two specimens were split into like five but didn’t get new numbers or anything so it’s just annoying to keep track of

[honest wave]

Nightmarish, cursed animals

[sullen cairn]

That whole conversation was a mess though because I posted a little cobbled together image of austroraptor quilmesaurus and bonatitan but someone thought the scale bar was like 10cm or something case they thought austro was some velociraptor sized thing

Turns out minimalism is bad in size comparisons

[honest wave]

Tbf that’s what austroraptor gets for having such bizarre proportions for a large dromaeosaur

[sullen cairn]

Yeah but unenlagiinae is fun to say

[honest wave]

Fair enough

[red cape]

@compact leaf is right. It is a sauropod’s track. The dig site is in Switzerland

[eager skiff]

Ik theres austroraptor but whats the other two

[pearl briar]

"why people keep saying that birds are dinosaur descendants???
as far as the taxonomic goes, birds are literally dinosaurs"

[sullen cairn]

quilmesaurus and bonatitan

[eager skiff]

Alr

[sullen cairn]

monophyly's too complicated for some people apparently

[viscid surge]

Monophyly’s 😔

[sullen cairn]

@compact leaf here's some general unnamed cretaceous brachiosaurid records I could find

-Possible Dahkla Brachiosaurid – Maastrichtian, Egypt (Could also be Titanosaurid (=Saltosauroidea/Lithostrotia?)
-Possible Charentes Brachiosaurid – Early Cenomanian, France
-Possible Longjing Brachiosaurid – Albian–Cenomanian, China
-Possible Sao Khua Brachiosaurid – Barremian, Thailand
-“Angloposeiden” – Barremian, England
-Possible Kirkwood Brachiosaurid – Valanginian–Hauterivian, South Africa
-Possible Jouâr Es-Souss Brachiosaurid – Berriasian–Hauterivian, Lebanon

There were a few other ones (Korea, Mexico, etc) but those have been disputed or otherwise debunked, but from some light searching these here seem to be fairly uncontested.

[heady thunder]

Cos no respect

[honest wave]

Pain. Agony, even.

[dim ether]

Knowledge

[magic monolith]

what are some acctualy good sourses?
websites,papers whatever,all i want is good dino sizes and such

[heady thunder]

For sizes go to google and write [dino name] skeletal 2023

[honest wave]

Ornithischia complete 😎

I'm gonna have to trim and organize some stuff, but everything is essentially there

[sullen cairn]

@light osprey I checked and Quaesitosaurus, Tapuiasaurus, also have skulls, as do Sarmientosaurus and Diamantinasaurus, but those two are in a clade basal to Lithostrotia

[steady rock]

could Cygnus falconeri fly? ( giant prehestoric swan )

[compact leaf]

at that size it’s still possible that it could fly but it may not have been great at it

[pearl briar]

what do u think that wing is used for???

[covert lintel]

this has wings therefore it can fly

[jagged trellis]

as a art reference ofcourse

[steady rock]

so it could fly but not very well?

[clever sable]

Are there any Nile crocodile skeletals? Like skeletals with the bones

Something like this but a Nile crocodile

[stiff osprey]

Just get Lambor to make one lol

[clever sable]

Wait no, better question: are there any skeletals of crocodylus anthropophagus

[astral kelp]

You should try to make your own yk, I’ve tried skeletal making it’s fun

[clever sable]

I've got no clue how to do it 💀

[chilly knot]

I actually attempted one but gave up because thorbjarnarsoni was easier

[clever sable]

Bro needs a skeletal, crocodylus anthropophagus skeletals literally do not exist, side views of oy basically do not exit

[clever sable]

Do you have the remains of the skeletal or did you just completely delete it and make thorbjarnarsoni instead? Like do you have the unfinished one? Or did you just not start making one

[sullen cairn]

bro needs that skeletal bad

[chilly knot]

I hate it, it's just scrappy skull parts all belonging to different individuals 😡

[sullen cairn]

composite skull time

[clever sable]

It's a beautiful creature (and you made astorgosuchus sooooo)

Isn't astorgosuchus like 2 jaw fragments? Btw that astorgosuchus skeletal is great, easily your best one

[chilly knot]

DW i still have everything, I just won't start up my pc at 4 am and being unable to see further than 30cm without contacts

[clever sable]

Ok, Keep up the good work with skeletals, not Many people make croc skeletals nowadays

[chilly knot]

thanks

[clever sable]

Btw, how far did you get on it?

[chilly knot]

Everything is drawn but has yet to be scaled

[clever sable]

Ah ok

Sounds good, I think it's funny how even the lower estimates for crocodylus anthropophagus put it at Cassius lengths and uh idk the weight but I'm gonna do a random non reliable guess and say it's like 1-1.4 tons for the lower estimate

[sullen cairn]

I'd just isometrically scale it to something with a weight estimate

[tough parcel]

https://twitter.com/PrimevalArtist/status/1685237970725416960?s=20

Falcon9 (Commissions Open!) (@PrimevalArtist)

Another mosasaur swimming into the charts, here's Mosasaurus itself! You might notice a thinner neck here than what is usually reconstructed. The reason is that mosasaur necks might've been more flexible and free then we give them credit for! Also including my friend's cameo!

Twitter · Jul 29, 2023, 10:36 AM

[heady thunder]

A devious smile

[snow python]

How big is the largest Majungasaurus?

[tough parcel]

Tbh depends, if you use Hartman's scaled to the largest skull, you get a much larger animal (iirc ~8 meters) compared to Franoys

[astral kelp]

is the orange the quadrate?

[tough parcel]

Narp, largest specimen that I don't actually know what we have of it, but it's not the quadrate, I know that

[stiff osprey]

Penza probably, a dentary

[astral kelp]

yup seems to be penza

[tough parcel]

Guh, the / was a typo on Incin's part and I didn't realize 😭

[green helm]

OHHH WHAT THE HEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLL

[green helm]

whats is the bitforce of astrogosuchus

[clever sable]

https://tenor.com/view/no-clue-scrubs-not-impressed-big-deal-tja-gif-16738064

[green helm]

is it allowed to gif in paleo chat

[heady thunder]

https://tenor.com/view/schitts-creek-obviously-yes-gif-14179788

[small temple]

https://youtube.com/shorts/pB89gW7_Ze0?feature=share

Imagine if the Deinon could bb

[honest wave]

Seeing "extant" slapped on to neotheropoda makes me so happy

[pearl briar]

"livyatan is the only known competitor and potential predator of the megalodon"
also livyatan:

[crude stone]

Danosar

[clever sable]

I mean, using those estimates the size difference isn't that extreme

[light osprey]

Checks out

[lavish frigate]

Is livyatan even bigger then a normal sperm whale?

[stiff osprey]

Smaller, but it has a wider and more powerfully built skull + teeth

[haughty marten]

the speed rex is based on bataar but not a good model tbh

[astral kelp]

iirc sperm whale teeth are more designed for fish/squid

[stiff osprey]

they usually don't use the teeth when eating squid, they just inhale them. Hence the lack of teeth on the upper jaw

[lavish frigate]

Shoutout to sperm whales for teaching us how big giant and colossal squid are

[chilly knot]

Virgin chewing vs chad inhaling

[clever sable]

Why the hell does this skull chart say this skull was 2 meters long? Isn't it like.... 1.6 meters or something like that?

[keen forum]

that feels a bit oversized

[clever sable]

The megalodon pictured is the average 15 meter one iirc

[keen forum]

seems so it's 16m compared to 12m levi i was wrong either way seems proper sized then

[fallow plank]

Didn't know Liv had a such a stubby lil tail

[honest wave]

hmmm i think i am going to refine my theropoda cladogram

pray for me lads

[honest wave]

I'm gonna try to avoid going nuts with the birds this time, but I do intend to cover them extensively

[sudden wind]

The teeth are vestigial. There are some that completely loose them and feed just right.

They don't need them to forage as the jaws itself is enough. They also are capable of some suction feeding in order to gulp their preys. Their white jaws also serve as lures to trick preys. It also can produce luminous substances to act like plankton.

[frail robin]

Would it be possible that in a context that lacks any aerial or medium/small predators, pterosaurs could evolve adaptations to hunt prey nearly their size/grab prey items that are on the ground while flying, like seen in Keenan Taylor's tapejarid descendants, or would the raptor-like hunting style remain locked to birds and their relatives that had the freedom of being able to grapple prey with their talons (Asking for a speculative evolution project)?

[tranquil quartz]

And then theres sigma filter feeding

[snow python]

Does anyone has an up to date Parasaurolophus skeletal?

[eager skiff]

What subspecies

[snow python]

cyrtocristatus

[eager skiff]

(Wouldn't recommend using the one shaded at the back @snow python)

[tranquil quartz]

You mean species?

[eager skiff]

Yes

[kind shuttle]

What is inertial feeding?

[stiff osprey]

Using gravity to help swallow food, i believe

[clever sable]

https://twitter.com/fishboy86164577/status/1584928023694159872 so uh, on a scale of 1-10 how reliable is this post?

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

[sudden wind]

Pretty reliable

[quaint isle]

Can someone give me a list of the currently invalid dinos and pterosaurs? I want to be surprised

[sullen cairn]

https://prehistoric-wiki.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Dubious_dinosaurs

Probably not the best but seems to cover a decent amount for dinosaurs

[quaint isle]

Thanks!

Since when was Gojirasaurus dubious?

[white matrix]

Damn scrotum is invalid 😭

[sullen cairn]

It’s chimeric and the coelophysoid material might not be diagnostic

[full panther]

1772 was a wild, wild time.

[quaint isle]

Dang

[somber tartan]

Question, since it’s well known that most spinosaurids lived with some sort of carcharodontid, did any spinosaurid live with concavenator

[stiff osprey]

We haven't found one, however Vallibonavenatrix lived in Spain at a similar time

[clever sable]

Any idea how wide the skull of chalawan is at the base? Just from eyeballing I'm guessing ~65 CM

[storm heron]

That is a pretty broad snout

[clever sable]

HW is based on the base of the skull, not the snout but yes it is, it's actually a close relative of sarco

[pearl briar]

what modern frog beelzebufo related to?

[sullen cairn]

Horned frogs

[sullen cairn]

~62.5cm off the scale bar

[distant lark]

Is the CREODONTA order still valid?

[sullen cairn]

Maybe

It’s sometimes recovered as polyphyletic and sometimes it’s not but idk enough about them to make a judgement

[pearl briar]

what kind of crocodilian astorgosuchus is?

[sudden wind]

a crocodyloid

[pearl briar]

a crocodile?

[sudden wind]

no

[pearl briar]

hmm
does astorgosuchus is even in crocodilian??

[sudden wind]

a crocodile is a crocodylid, Astorgosuchus is more basal than that but it is within crocodylia

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/batman-i-see-think-thinking-pondering-gif-4994872

[heady thunder]

Any of you guys have any of the studies or links to them which show how strong thallas bite was?

[pearl briar]

what thalas ru talkin abt?
we got thalassodromeus, thalassomedon, & thalassotitan

[heady thunder]

The one we have in game

[ancient crystal]

The one that reasonably shouldn't have anything to do with the thala part of its name

[compact leaf]

https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/193/2/602/6105019

[heady thunder]

Ok so I found the correct one by myself then, I wanted to double check, thnx.

[scarlet moon]

What's the biggest pterosaur excluding anzarchids?

[stiff osprey]

Though Geosternbergia and some other fragmentary ornithocheirids may be bigger

[scarlet moon]

Interesting

[snow python]

I know Oxalaia isn't valid anymore and the specimen was destroyed but how big was that animal?

[clever sable]

Oxalaia is a dubious fella but it's not completely confirmed to be invalid iirc

[compact leaf]

the fossil just doesn’t exist so we can’t say one way or the other but it was regarded as synonymous with spinosaurus before that happened

[sullen cairn]

It’s been recovered as it’s own thing as well

It’s kinda ambiguous

[white matrix]

So mr lapparenti in game is not actual sucho?

[sullen cairn]

The subspecies ingame are generally loosely based off relatives if applicable

[woeful falcon]

I'd say its more of a case by case basis than general

[sullen cairn]

Yeah I guess more if there’s a history of synonymization. So kinda, but probably not because if cristatusaurus and sucho are synonyms it’d be called cristatusaurus.

[white matrix]

Weird

[sullen cairn]

So it’s a fictional species of suchomimus named in homage of/very loosely based off of cristatusaurus

[white matrix]

I get it now thx))

[clever sable]

Any idea why this skull is listed at 2 meters in this chart? Isn't the skull actually like 1.6 meters?

[chilly knot]

Only god knows because this is based on scale bars, not measurements

[compact leaf]

yeah until we find more remains it’ll stay in it’s weird little grey area

[clever sable]

Fadeno try to be credible challenge: impossible

[chilly knot]

I mean he marked it with a big "?" and wrote "Based on the scale bars..."

[honest wave]

[white matrix]

I thought megaraptorans where coelurosaurs

[stiff osprey]

they are tetanurae indet.

[honest wave]

Tetanurae very indet.

I love phylogeny

[compact leaf]

megaraptora causes me pain

[honest wave]

It certainly doesn't help that it is sometimes nested in groupings that have uncertain placements themselves

I personally follow the papers placing it in coelurosauria, particularly near the base of tyrannosauroidea, but I think it is important to show a lot of the prominent theories for its placement.

This is everything I have mapped out at the moment. I'm going to expand on the area around avialae later on since it is such a massive clade.

If there are any notable inaccuracies or missing clades, please let me know.

[restive cape]

Sorry if this has been discussed before but anybody notice that the Pachy models in-game don’t have beaks? Is that accurate? I always thought they had them

[honest wave]

It's sort of unknown at this point. There isn't really any evidence for or against a beak or lips.

Basically it's fine to have either lipped pachy or beaked pachy, we just don't know enough yet to say which is more accurate.

[restive cape]

Ah interesting, I presume that’s different for other dinos like some ornithischians that people seem much surer had beaks?

[honest wave]

Beaks seem to be something that appears and reappears throughout archosauria, so it varies greatly depending on the clade.

[elder kettle]

Achillobator size

[honest wave]

Alrighty, theropoda cladogram completed except for avialae.

[honest wave]

Don't use diagrams from prehistoric wildlife, very little of their stuff is even remotely accurate.

[elder kettle]

What should I use?

[honest wave]

Wikipedia is generally ok, but there are individual researchers and respected paleoartists that post their own references in various places.

[elder kettle]

Achillobator is accurate tho right?

[honest wave]

Fred Wierum generally has good size refs and art to accompany. It'll take me a bit longer for achillo

[elder kettle]

Bet

[honest wave]

Alright, this achillo ref seems good assuming the squares represent meters.

[elder kettle]

Bettttt

[sullen cairn]

If you want to make things more confusing elaphrosaurinae has been recovered as more basal within ceratosauria before

[honest wave]

What do you mean by bet

[restive cape]

Bet just means like ‘sure thing’

[elder kettle]

I love the Achillobator

[frail robin]

Were Ornithocheirids able to plunge into water, like modern Gannets (Or a less extreme version), or would they have been restricted to dip feeding and landing on the water's surface to dive?

[elder kettle]

Imagine the austro raptor in game. Probably being able to dive

[honest wave]

I don't believe we have any conclusive studies on ornithocheirid feeding methods, but given their size and general lack of strong aquatic adaptations I wouldn't assume they would dive underwater. They probably could submerge if they wanted to, but it probably wasn't an ideal strategy for them.

[honest wave]

Thanks for the correction bestie

[elder kettle]

@honest wave So if I’m not wrong the Achillobator wouldn’t have been able to pounce on larger prey because of how their legs were built. Right?

[clever sable]

Ewwww, prehistoric wildlife, bleh

[sullen cairn]

Noasauridae has also been recovered as basal ceratosauria if you really hate yourself

[clever sable]

And allosaurus wouldn't be able to do the axe head thing but that's in game so it doesn't really matter at this point

[frail robin]

Hmm. I want to try on making a realism dinosaur survival game as a project, and a way I thought I'd reduce competition between fisher pterosaurs was by making them feed in different ways (Pteranodontids landing on the water's surface and diving, Nyctosaurids dip feeding and Ornithocheirids plunge diving)

[honest wave]

I haven't heard anything regarding this. It's true that achillo and the larger dromaeosaurs would have been less acrobatic than their smaller relatives, but given modern predators of comparable mass can still maneuver themselves on top of their prey, I don't see why they couldn't.

[elder kettle]

Good to know. I love raptors

[honest wave]

For some reason my brain was interpreting ornithocheirid as deinocheirid My bad, disregard my other answer.

I don't know enough about pterosaurs to really say much on them unfortunately. I'm eventually going to do another phylogeny project on them, but until then I don't know a ton. I'm more of a coelurosaur person

[sullen cairn]

Ornithodeinocheiridae

[honest wave]

I wish I could point you towards a big pterosaur nerd

[covert lintel]

megaraptora could be anywhere, at any time. they could be a bird. they could be a mammal. they could be a cartilaginous fish. they could be you. they could be me. they could even b

[honest wave]

megaraptorans are actually the shadow government

[honest wave]

Hey I actually couldn't find anything pointing towards this as having been a thing. Do you know if you could link me a study just so I could verify?

I don't really doubt that placement, but I want to keep as close to recent studies as possible

[sullen cairn]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click on image to zoom&p=PMC3&id=6021374_41598_2018_28154_Fig1_HTML.jpg

[honest wave]

Ah swag, thanks

[elder kettle]

The achillobator pics I sent, are they accurate?

[honest wave]

Corrections made for noasauridae as a whole

[sullen cairn]

This is the best I could find on those guys’ feeding ecology

[steady rock]

whats stopping deinocherius and baryonx from drowning their attackers like kangaroos do

[sullen cairn]

The things being drowned are more than 2ft tall

I like the mental image though

[steady rock]

i mean, so are the creatures doing the drowning

[sullen cairn]

I moreso mean that a Tarbosaurus at the same depth as a Deinocheirus is going to be much higher above the water level than if a dog and kangaroo were at the same depth, at which point it would much more ineffective to try and drown it

[steady rock]

oh

[honest wave]

All I have left to do is aves and I've completed theropoda

It's always amazing to see just how diverse birds were outside of aves

Sorry if the enantiornithines are a mess, it was rough trying to organize them

[clever sable]

Mass estimates for this guy? I've seen 8 tons so far but idk if that's still accurate

[astral kelp]

is this magnapaulia aka big paul?

[clever sable]

Yes

[astral kelp]

iirc wasnt the estimate around 8.2t or something

[stiff osprey]

the larger one (which is oversized in the image) is around 10t

[clever sable]

Is that the size when not oversized? Or is that how large the one displayed would be if it was that big

[stiff osprey]

the correct size

[clever sable]

Is it true a massive new paper is coming out on the second? I hear it's gonna be something huge but I wanna see if what I'm hearing about is real, I've seen this along with a couple other things and I wanna know if an embargo on a massive new paper is actually lifting in 2 days?

[compact leaf]

rewriting the evolution of vertebrates is a pretty massive statement, this is the first I’ve heard of it but either way it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out

[clever sable]

I've heard some rumors (unconfirmed and the source could just be making it up) that it's a massive early toothed baleen whale that's like 100 tons, like llanocetus but massive but idk if these hold any weight

[stiff osprey]

I can assure you it doesn't rewrite vertebrate evolution, nor is it a 100 t whale

Sure is big though

[sullen cairn]

Sensationalism? In my rumors? It’s more likely than I think?

[elfin pulsar]

Anyone know an accurate depiction of how the scales on the head of a theropod would look

Nvm found a good one

[pseudo linden]

just saw meg 1 thought abt its accuracy and thought it was pretty close or am i wrong?

[bright veldt]

It's too big but that's about it. It's design at least is perfectly fine for the most part.

[honest wave]

Behold, a man

I made sure to include some of the major clades of extinct members of aves, not just the extant ones

[elfin pulsar]

Welcome back

[honest wave]

Oh yeah, hey Scanova. Why do you have the new member icon?

[bright veldt]

I've been in and out. I only came back in here today

[honest wave]

whatever the case, welcome back

[elfin pulsar]

What are some species of smaller tyrannosaurids?

[honest wave]

For specifically tyrannosauridae, the smallest ones I can think of off the top of my head are alectrosaurus and alioramus

[sullen cairn]

Alectrosaurus is outside tyrannosauridae but both alioramus specimens are the smallest

Teratophoneus and Lythronax are both under 2000kg as well

[honest wave]

In general, tyrannosaurids are quite large. None of them can really be classified as small theropods, just medium-sized. Tyrannosauroidea is where the smaller taxa are.

[sullen cairn]

Actually teratophoneus might have larger more mature specimens

But yeah the only “small” ones were alioramines or the earliest member of the clade

[elfin pulsar]

Gotcha thanks

[honest wave]

Given that the genera just outside of tyrannosauridae are already quite big, I feel like not even the earliest member would've been small. The smallest of the three taxa just outside tyrannosauridae is still over half a ton.

[sullen cairn]

Yeah I say “small” loosely since lythronax is still at least 1500kg

[elfin pulsar]

Do any of you have an accurate alioramus depiction?

[sullen cairn]

Probably random’s skeletal but keep in mind it’s not fully grown

Oh god that image quality

[eager skiff]

Someone needs to rescale this one to an adult

[honest wave]

Given that alioramus itself is only known from juvenile and subadult specimens, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume they looked more like qianzhousaurus as adults. For that, the prehistoric planet qianzhou is great, but we still have reasonably accurate depictions of adult alio.

[elfin pulsar]

Idk if this is a weird question but is there a tyrannosaurid with a boxy skull

[elfin pulsar]

Oh looks good, thanks

[honest wave]

The taxa closest to tyrannosaurus (zucheng and tarbo) tend to have fairly boxy skulls, but I don't know if I understand what you're asking.

[elfin pulsar]

Ohhhh yeah it’s tarbo, thanks. Do you know any accurate tarno reconstructions?

[honest wave]

This is a really nice one

[elfin pulsar]

Thansk for the help, helped a lot

[honest wave]

Alrighty, theropoda complete

Ok this one should be less heinous of a file

[elder kettle]

What was the most annoying dinosaur?

[honest wave]

The megaraptorans were easily the worst as a singular clade, but aves was a nightmare.

[elder kettle]

Oh ok

[pseudo linden]

thats what i was thinking

[honest wave]

You would think that aves would be easy since the majority of them are alive today and we don't have to rely on fossils to classify every single one, but there are so many taxa that it takes up half the cladogram.

[bright veldt]

Alectrosaurus is not a tyrannosaurid

[elder kettle]

What family are the raptors in?

[sullen cairn]

Technically you forgot megaraptoridae

[honest wave]

Yes, table corrected me on that earlier. I just recalled incorrectly.

[pseudo linden]

Dromaeosaurid

[bright veldt]

The smallest tyrannosaurids are the alioramines: alioramus and qianzhousaurus (even accounting for the fact specimens are immature, they likely didn't scale up to lythronax or nanuqsaurus either way even as adults).

[elder kettle]

Good to know

[bright veldt]

Megaraptorans are a bit up for debate. The first paper to actually reasonably classify them, which was released relatively recently, proposed them to be tyrannosauroids (funnily enough closer to proper tyrannosaurids than yutyrannus is).

[pseudo linden]

1 of my fav dinos ❤️

[honest wave]

When people say raptor they usually just use it in the sense of "non-avians with sickle claws", so these are the ones that get called that the most. Raptor is a very informal term.

[bright veldt]

Eh I think it's 1-1 with dromaeosauridae. Some people use it for troodontids but that really bothers me. It's like, you either keep the term to dromaeosaur or might as well make all non-bird paravians raptors. Sickle claws in paravians are way more common than people think.

[elder kettle]

Was achillobator Chinese version of the Utah?

[honest wave]

It annoys me when people use it for troodontids as well, but it is such an informal term that I don't see much reason to correct them. The only issue is when people assume dromaeosauridae = troodontidae.

[sullen cairn]

Mongolian but they’re both quite robust

[bright veldt]

Achillobator isn't that well-studied. It's generally acknowledged as "utahraptor but asia" in size and build.

[sullen cairn]

Yeah they like to clade together pretty consistently

[elder kettle]

Achillobator needs to be studied more

[honest wave]

Many animals need to be studied more, but yeah.

[elder kettle]

You guys don't understand my love for achillobator

[sullen cairn]

There’s also the potentially huge bissekty one

[elder kettle]

Is the terror bird considered a dinosaur?

[honest wave]

Yes, any bird is a dinosaur. Also, there isn't just "the terror bird". Terror bird is a word used to refer to most extinct members of cariamaformes and even some close relatives of ducks that weren't even carnivorous.

[elder kettle]

Imagine hearing this in the distance

[honest wave]

Those videos are not based on research

[elder kettle]

Damn

[honest wave]

They only prehistoric animals we have a remotely close recreation of regarding their calls is parasaurolophus and corythosaurus, and the one for para is still very dubious due to the methods used to create it.

[elder kettle]

What ever they sounded like id be scared

[honest wave]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvpdCadEWdc The project for corythosaurus is marginally more accurate since it does more to recreate the soft tissue for the resonating chamber.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtpSOpUDCb8 This one for parasaurolophus is less realistic since it doesn't do much to take soft tissue into consideration.

Both of these are still likely nowhere near reality since they only really succeed in speculating on the possible range and texture of the sounds the animals would have made in life.

[dusky galleon]

If an asteroid comparable to the Chixalub Asteroid hit the the same place today what would happen?

[elder kettle]

Damnn

[honest wave]

Given that it likely caused the global atmospheric temp to raise to combustion for hours after impact, a near-global tsunami, horrific earthquakes, years of darkness, and decades of acid rain and global freezing, we'd probably be screwed.

[honest wave]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxeRdZ0gn8k This video is a decent portrayal of the event happening to current Earth, but it has plenty of inaccuracies aside from the innate margin of error present in a project like this. Take it with a 17 kilometer grain of salt and remember that it is more for entertainment than actual study.

[covert lintel]

basically the same thing as last time (read: a really bad time for everyone that isn't small), except maybe with less volcanism (because afaik there's not a massive area of relatively high volcanic activity that can be made worse by the force of a Really Big Rock hitting the earth at Really High Speeds)

[honest wave]

Iirc the mantle plume underneath Hawai'i is comparable to the one for the Deccan Traps. If the impact happened in a way that disturbed it then we could have a repeat of the previous post-asteroid volcanism.

[covert lintel]

Ah,

[honest wave]

Thankfully it's fairly deep at the moment, but it's still concerningly large.

[covert lintel]

well im sure thats Fine probably,

anyway, for related reasons i retract the bit about Less Volcanism. really big rock hitting the earth at really high speeds has basically the same result throughout time, apparently

[honest wave]

Yep!

[elfin pulsar]

How large?

[honest wave]

big large, idk

[elfin pulsar]

Valid

[honest wave]

i dont know much about volcanism but i assume this is bad

I just remember folks talking about various effects of the Chicxulub impact discussing how there was a mantle plume under Hawai'i that is near the size or larger than the one that formed the Deccan. I don't know if Wikipedia has an accurate representation of that data, but I recall various people who know more than me talking about it.

I wouldn't worry too much about volcanoes though, since the processes we are initiating through industry are already comparable to or surpassing the chemical processes that caused the Permian's Great Dying.

All-in-all, it's a great time to be a palaeontologist

[pearl briar]

is tyrannosaurus scotty is still 12.37 meters long & 10.4 tons?

[stiff osprey]

yes, you can definitely be accurate to the length of an incomplete animal down to the centimeter

[elder kettle]

@honest wave did Iggy run like this?

[honest wave]

honestly it's hard to parse a gif from a 2000s movie from that perspective

[honest wave]

idk how iggy ran, but most of what ive heard supports quadrupedal walking and bipedal sprinting. my brain is out of science juice for the night.

[rich niche]

Phorusrhacos, yall's thoughts?

[pearl briar]

Iggy walks with 4 legs & runs and sprint with 2 legs

[rich niche]

yeah, it wouldnt be able to move fast with its weight that far forward when on all 4s

[elder kettle]

Why

[woeful hamlet]

What’s larger, Shastasaurus or Shoniosaurus?

[sullen cairn]

Probably shonisaurus

S. sikanniensis flip flops between the two but I think it being shonisaurus has more support

[woeful hamlet]

Alright, thank you

[pearl briar]

Shasta

anyway...
Deinosuchus

[clever sable]

All birds are considered dinosaurs, those birds you may see outside today are dinosaurs

[bright veldt]

It’s generally agreed on nowadays that iguanodon and hadrosaurs and such spent most of their time quad, including while running. They still reared up but to observe their surroundings and feed from higher branches rather than run. Stegosaurs were probably similar.

[astral kelp]

Oh hey scan was wondering when you left the server

[restive cape]

New here so sorry if it’s been discussed before (because it probably has) but does anyone know why they named the Pycno as such when it is clearly based off Carnotauros? Just curious, guessing they’re not planning to change that?

[tough parcel]

They are not planning to change that and we don't know why they based it off of Carnotaurus considering the two aren't closely related (other than being abelisurs)

[restive cape]

Thanks for the response! Did they state that they’re not planning to change it or is it a hunch? Because I was also wondering if perhaps they’d change the Thalasso or Kaiwhekea’s diets/gameplay too 😅

[tough parcel]

It's a hunch considering it's a fairly new animal and well-done in terms of modeling. If I had to guess, I'd say they would make any changes to Thal-Kai-Pycno after every animal is released (or almost every animal)

[bright veldt]

We all know it’s to rip off of carno’s popularity rather than give the thing it’s own identity.

[clever sable]

Astorgosuchus is pretty cool

[woeful falcon]

My gamer theory: a combination of capitalizing on Carno's popularity, not knowing Pycno's closer relation to Llukalkan and also being made probably soon after the Carno skin paper dropped.

The default sub being a carno one tho I'm not a fan of

[bright veldt]

A carnotaurus subspecies is not inherently bad. I even encouraged it. But why does it need two carno species, including one being the default.

[stiff osprey]

should've done a Skorpiovenator subspecies, it looks way cooler than hornless carno

[heady thunder]

Isnt scorpio more related to metri or am I mixing it with smth else?

[woeful falcon]

I don't know what you could possibly be mixing with, besides maybe....sinraptor? Yang?

Skorpio is an abelisaurid

[heady thunder]

Sinraptor yeah I mixed them up

[clever sable]

This, exactly this (btw I love your content)

How accurate are these size comparisons? They seem decent to me but I'm no professional

[bright veldt]

They’re about right although idk the details.

[frail robin]

Really, the "accuracy" of PoT is very questionable. Dinosaurs sitting upright like dogs, oversized creatures for no reason, whatever in hell Thalassodromeus is supposed to be, and Kai

[bright veldt]

Eh at the end of the day it’s the designs that matter most

Gameplay and animations never really were, and that’s ok. If they were accurate then sucho wouldn’t be semi-aquatic.

[nocturne gazelle]

The issue is that it's lazy to bank off the popularity of carno when you said you were adding pycno.
No one is upset with how metri looks because it has a good design and a gameplay niche. However pycnos feels ripped off of carno because it's default sub isn't even actual pycno. They should have gone the pachy route and made a different sub for different species. Instead of reusing the same species twice.

[woeful falcon]

Metri also gets flack for similar, and its arguably more egregious in some ways. But with metri I reckon most people don't know better with it, unlike Pycno which uses one of the most well known dinosaurs

[still prairie]

At least make it look like some kind of other South American Abelisaurid than carno. We have a mod for that

[still prairie]

I mean the only other metricanthosaurus in media is JWE and That's not really a great start

[heady thunder]

They both gave good designs and gameplay niches, but one is ripping off smth insanely popular and the other, is like, unknown.

[nocturne gazelle]

True

[still prairie]

To be fair I don't really think they're trying to be 100% accurate especially since in some cases it would detract the fun and I think they said the accuracy was more to add ''flavour'' to the dinos. But still kinda stupid. BTW what is POT's mos accurate dino?

[bright veldt]

JWE’s Metri is better than PoT’s

[bright veldt]

Most accurate dino is probably Camptosaurus.

[heady thunder]

Most accurate? Cera, campto, duck, rex, deinon and laten, dasp, sucho, alberta, iggy model wise, amarga too.

[wispy summit]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/512496784547905547/918690294713692230/58BB6E35-31BF-432A-85B6-64CC8D321139.gif

[clever sable]

I'm kinda sick of the "venomous creature niche" being a thing in these games, especially when it's with stuff like metri or dilo, I don't mind it as much with meg but it's still really dumb, you take a creature that's pretty unique, give it something it didn't actually have and instead of people knowing it for the unique things it actually did have they just know it for being venomous, dilo is a great example of this

[bright veldt]

I’m sorry but after Primordial Tyrants released their rex I can’t take PoT’s seriously. I can’t call out the specific inaccuracies but the differences are night and day.

[still prairie]

I mean fair but eventually something will have to be venomous and hey at least its not dilo again

[clever sable]

It wouldn't matter if the designs aren't accurate as long as the designs are also unique and original in a good way, something most of the PoT designs are not

[frail robin]

I was talking about designs (and animations along with them). I 100% agree that PoT is more fun the way it is gameplay wise, and not realism based. However, there are many, many small and big details that are overlooked. Deinon's and Laten's wings don't fold, Thal just has David Peters spay-painted all over it, Kai sucks, Struthi doesn't have a beak, Pycno is crying in a corner, Pachy doesn't have a beak, Rex is just JP Rex but with lips and more color, and the list goes on. There are many more inaccuracies, but it would take too long to list them all here
ALSO WHY DO THE DINOSAURS SIT UPRIGHT, IT LOOKS SO WRONG

[still prairie]

Like damn the more i see it the more of a travesty the thing is. Like its so bad the subspecies without lips look more accurate like sanguis

[astral kelp]

PT's got some minor inaccuracies as well, ear hole being to low, nostrils facing sideways instead of forward, front toe being wrongly positioned

[clever sable]

Modding and community servers are keeping PoT alive, especially PT

[frigid coral]

at least it looks less awkward

[still prairie]

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT.LIKE WHY DO THEY SIT LIKE THAT JESUS.Wanna know the worst part? They actually used to sit somewhat decently prior like allo.Then they changed it

[bright veldt]

That doesn’t bother me personally

[clever sable]

Still infinitely better than official rex

[heady thunder]

Allo sits upright tho

[frigid coral]

theres something off abt POTs rex, even beyond just inaccuracies, and I can't tell what it is

[astral kelp]

duh hence why I said minor lmao.

[woeful falcon]

I can tell you.

It's likely old. Has characteristics of models from 3-4 years ago

[lime surge]

Yk what nevermind

[ancient crystal]

It looks dried up to me

[frigid coral]

It kinda looks like the laten model from when the game first released on mobile

[clever sable]

So uh, what's everyone's favorite dinosaur? My personal favorite is between acrocanthosaurus, tyrannosaurus and deinocheirus

[bright veldt]

^ it doesn’t need to be literally perfect. That’s asking to go the Saurian route of constantly being behind.

[night bluff]

Sheesh, idk if you've ever tried modelling or animating off of a skeleton, but it aint easy cut PoT slack it's not like they aren't also consistently updating.

[frail robin]

YES. I mean, seriously, the goddamn Isle got it right, and they are actually going for Retro-like designs. Rex looks like it's in pain when it sits down. I think I have just been spoiled by PT and them being very accurate

[frigid coral]

mine is Pinacosaurus, Velociraptor, and a bit of a tie between Ceratosaurus and Microraptor

[woeful falcon]

My favorite is Gorgosaurus

[still prairie]

No I'm talking about how before they used to
lie with all their legs and arms on they ground now they sit upright

[clever sable]

A modding team for their own game is outdoing them

[bright veldt]

It’s a mixed bag and worthy of criticism. Amarga was the last dinosaur they released that was actually decent. And yeah, a modding team making the same dinosaur but better looking in every way is kind of embarrassing.

[night bluff]

Im sorry have you heard of an open source game before? They left their stuff available FOR modding teams to do great things with

[frigid coral]

You can still critique models, esp since Path of Titans has shown they can do better, along with modding teams that don't even have their own game. Even games that aren't trying to be accurate have rex models that look less awkward.

[frail robin]

Deinocheirus, Dromeosaurus, Oviraptor, Citipati, Acrocanthosaurus, Gigantoraptor and Icthyovenator

[heady thunder]

Its cos of this.

[bright veldt]

Like, it single handedly killed any hype I had for future official dinosaurs. Why should I care about future dinosaur additions when they’ll likely be worse than modded ones?

[woeful falcon]

Embarassing if it wasn't probably 3+ years old. So what's more embarassing is they let it out that old. You compare rex to current campto or sucho, the quality difference is apparent

It's old

[night bluff]

Critiques are fine, but referring to a model as a travesty, or that you can't take them seriously because of a model isn't critiquing.

[astral kelp]

this is true rex is old, its not PoT's fault, it'd be 100x better I assure you once jiggy updates it

[bright veldt]

This implies that their strategy of basically having all the dinosaur models on standby and releasing when ready’s a smart idea. What you pointed out is the problem with this system.

[still prairie]

Mine's Monolophosaurus,Dracovenator,Changdongcoelurus Dilo,Lilien,Guanlong

[frigid coral]

I kind of wish they didn't hold back a super old model for something meant to be a massive update

[clever sable]

Kai is a travesty, it's so ugly looking

[woeful falcon]

I never said it was smart. It's just that its what they did. Rex isn't reflective of jiggy's current ability

[still prairie]

Why did they give the one thing without lips lips?

[frail robin]

I don't even want to touch on how much of a failure Thal was, both gameplay, stat, and design wise

[bright veldt]

It also doesn’t help that they likely won’t be touched for a long time because they’re “new” despite the fact they need the touchup more than some older faces imo

[frigid coral]

I really do wish rex was redone before release even if it meant the update was delayed

[bright veldt]

God bless Kaiwhekea man. You can argue for the rest but it’s the worst model rn straight up.

[viscid surge]

If this debate is about how realistic PoT models are, there’s almost no defending a few of the latest ones IMO my opinion

[ancient crystal]

Doesn't thal have a pretty decent model, its just the scaling that's way off?

[clever sable]

In my opinion, spino has one of the best designs in game, it may not be the most accurate but it has everything a good dinosaur design should be, it's very clearly a spino but at the same time it is very clearly PoTs spino, it's also very unique looking along with the skins being pretty great and plus I love the sounds

[frigid coral]

i still am curious why they made thal so big, this makes me slightly scared of how much they'll oversize hatz

edit: whats that bad about thal? the only thing i noticed was the neck missing or having too many bones and the wings not folding right

[frail robin]

No, no, Thal is. Thal is an abomination. I would have preferred a retro Thal with scales, but dear god is the current one so goddamn bad. It makes me want to vomit

[bright veldt]

Spinosaurus was perfectly reasonable for the time it released. It wasn’t their fault the new fluke got revealed like a month later.

[astral kelp]

the current one isn't really bad besides the wings being incorrect and being vastly oversized

[scenic flame]

Spino's textures also hold up pretty well imo.
I agree with what scan said but I feel the textures etc are the main issues for rex, kai, etc

[clever sable]

Spinosaurus with some minor touchups to the tail could easily be the best PoT model

[frigid coral]

i still dont like deinoys model
it looks like a wet owl

[still prairie]

Like I know I am in no business to say this as someone who isn't a modeler but jesus Everything is wrong. Lips,It's a carni not a herbi I could say more but i'm lazy

[bright veldt]

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the next on the list given steno’s touchup. Steno in general overshadows deinon.

[viscid surge]

They really destroyed thal just to make it into pteranodon huh

[frigid coral]

deinon also had a touchup recently but just for the posture and subspec

[astral kelp]

just say laten, I was genuienly confused for a sec lel

[ancient crystal]

They do that to a lot of creatures, PoT having unique and lesser known crearures is very superficial

[frail robin]

Incorrect wing shape, wings don't fold, it was only 5 pycnofibers, it has the wrong type of hand position, stance, leg position, tail membrane, wing membrane and also the its eyes look like human eyes

[bright veldt]

For what creature? Thalassodromeus was a thalassodromid, which are predatory, not a herbivorous/omnivorous tapejarid.

[still prairie]

It's kai

[frigid coral]

im still sad about kai being a fisher and just being a generic plesiosaur when its irl lifestyle was so much cooler

[clever sable]

Btw, does anyone have any skeletals for modern animals, as in skeletals like this but for modern creatures, I literally cannot find any

[scenic flame]

uh, kai isn't a herbivore

[bright veldt]

Kai wasn’t a herbivore either. I said “underwater herbivore” due to the fact it’d function similarly in gameplay if implemented correctly. It’s a bottom filter feeder.

[astral kelp]

https://twitter.com/ivaniofri this person has some modern animal skeletals, mostly big cats and extinct herbivorus megafauna

[viscid surge]

Exact same argument for thal

[still prairie]

Crap Mb

[scenic flame]

yeah gameplay wise it would function like one, would like to see a creature that eats near exclusively shellfish

[bright veldt]

Got to love how they took a plesiosaur with one of the most unique lifestyles ever known and made it basic plesiosaur #15

[frigid coral]

it has one of the best preserved fossils for a plesiosaur too how did they mess it up that bad

[viscid surge]

Feel like hatz is gonna be a ground dwelling wader with bonebreak and a 24m wingspan at this point 💀

[still prairie]

Like they could have chosen Styxo which Woolunga was lumped into and Styxo doesn't have much in media

[bright veldt]

Yeah no if they scale it compared to Thalasso instead of having common sense like PT quetz then we’re seeing something akin to Jurassic World quetzalcoatlus

[frigid coral]

i really wish they'd fix the scaling in the game completely

[still prairie]

Screw that It'll be damn Rodan at this rate

[scenic flame]

if it were

[heady thunder]

Gets two shot by allo

[still prairie]

And is the only creature unable to recover health naturally

[noble dune]

Wait what?

[clever sable]

Bruh, if all modern crocodilians can death roll including false Gharials and Gharials what the hell is wrong with sarcos skull structure that doesn't allow it to death roll lol

[still prairie]

Sarc be built different

[dusky galleon]

If the Siberian Traps erupted againt today what would happen to humanity?

[heady thunder]

The Russian currency would crash

[clever sable]

Bro was a generalist croc that couldn't death roll, I wanna know what sarco was doing in life

[still prairie]

It'd evaporate

[frail robin]

What's worse is that the devs won't hear us out for a deserved remodel for the creatures that need it in terms of accuracy. PoT claims to be accurate, yet the designs feel like a huge let-down

[pseudo linden]

i have some but no full skeletals i have parts and skulls

[bright veldt]

Gharials don’t death roll. They can barely shake large food items without risking injury.

[astral kelp]

The DRCI values close to or greater than 1 are correlated with species that have the potential to perform the death roll (crocs and gators). In the case of Sarco its DRCI value might be significantly below 1

DRCI means "Death Roll Cranial Index"

[clever sable]

Well, that still doesn't mean it's not weird sarco couldn't death roll because sarcos skull is like..... Much more robust than even most tomistomas, I just wanna know how the hell sarco was doing generalist things while not being able to death roll

[astral kelp]

.

[pseudo linden]

sarcos still probably death roll since they are incredibly larger than gharlials

[clever sable]

Maybe it just did head whips and thrashes

[astral kelp]

@clever sable

[pseudo linden]

i doubt that a crocodillian of that size wouldnt deathroll

[astral kelp]

it simply couldn't its DRCI level was less than 1, compared to other crocodyliforms who have a DRCI level greater or equal to one

[clever sable]

Yes I know, however sarco was a generalist so it had to break up prey somehow

[pseudo linden]

then would it thrash like modern day fish and crocs?

[astral kelp]

thrashing probably? death roll would put too much stress on its skull

[clever sable]

What's the DRCI level of a false Gharial?

[pseudo linden]

got it i just realized its skelital structure was more similar to gharlials than any other croc so that makes sense

[astral kelp]

not sure tbh doesn't state in the paper, all I know is sarcos DRCI is 0.18

[clever sable]

It's not that similar

[pseudo linden]

oh ;-;

[stark pasture]

Sarco is more like a slender-snouted crocodile than a gharial

[clever sable]

I mostly compare them to false Gharials and stuff like Orinocos

[pseudo linden]

how easily would a suchomimus be killed by a sarcho?

[tough parcel]

Pretty decently matched, I'd assume it's akin to lion-crocs of today, maybe

[pseudo linden]

thats what i was thinking but i think a baryonx would struggle to hold its own

[sullen cairn]

Theoretically definitely

[tough parcel]

I mean, depends considering the Bary we all know and love isn't adult sized iirc?

The most complete Baryonyx we have might not be adult if I am remembering right

[pseudo linden]

wdym im confused?

[sullen cairn]

That old big vert scaling time

[clever sable]

I don't think it would be super even, idk though I could be wrong

[compact leaf]

I’m pretty sure it’s the holotype that isn’t fully grown but beyond that it’s just isolated fragments, it’s also being questioned if a lot of pieces are even bary

[clever sable]

That's uh, pretty low lol

[astral kelp]

yup

[clever sable]

Does anyone here know what the DRCI of the false Gharial?

[astral kelp]

for clarification this is where im getting my info from

[clever sable]

Yeah ik

[sullen cairn]

Yeah holotype’s maybe subadult and then there’s bits and pieces that suggest a larger size eg larramendi’s 9.7m phalange and Dan’s 10.4m dorsal (which needs to be downsized)

[bright veldt]

Suchomimus is huge, and has only been getting bigger with more recent discoveries.

[astral kelp]

5300 kg sucho peak (thats its actual weight currently)

[heady thunder]

Acro sucho

[bright veldt]

Sarco has more muscle, an armored back, and has it’s powerful bite. But sucho’s larger, taller, and it’s claws are formidable as well. It could go either way honestly. Last reliable mass estimate I saw is 4 tons. Where’s this 5+ tons coming from?

[astral kelp]

based on the scanned material from sereno apparently someone gdi'd it and got 5300 kg sucho

[heady thunder]

That thing doesnt look like 5 tons, idk about the math.

[vocal breach]

Wouldn’t that make it the same size as tarbo?

[sullen cairn]

Yeah

[bright veldt]

Ok when I said it was getting bigger that doesn’t mean I asked it to keep increasing

[sullen cairn]

Too bad

[astral kelp]

sucho went from 3.6 > 4.2 > 5.3 lol

[bright veldt]

Yeah I think sucho’s more favorable in that fight with sarco then.

[sullen cairn]

Why is the cooldown 20 seconds longer now

[astral kelp]

sucho and sarco weigh roughly the same iirc, sarco is like what 5.5t now?

@clever sable was it 5.5t for sarco?

[bright veldt]

What. Is there also anything more rigorous on sucho’s new size instead of just some discord messages.

[stiff osprey]

It's weighed from the 3d skeleton of Sereno et al., 2022

[bright veldt]

Gotcha. Did sarco get the same treatment or something?

[stiff osprey]

nah, the sarco upsize is just people citing dubious estimates based on crocodylians, which Sarcosuchus is not

[heady thunder]

We gotta obviously tie the opponents, otherwise the fight wont be good for promotion.

[bright veldt]

Yeah sarco was playing 2nd fiddle to sucho then. Ain’t no way.

[tough parcel]

Oh btw random, should I use DT's Sarco skeletal? Or your Mark 3 one? I've been told yours doesn't match the skull which is weird cause I swear it's the same size as DT

[bright veldt]

And it also makes things much more ominous for all the herbivores lmao. Ouranosaurus and nigersaurus are half it’s size now.

[stiff osprey]

Mark 3 as in the silhouette? I'd recommend DT's over that, it's more rigorous

[clever sable]

I still think every single estimate we have ever gotten for sarco is kinda crap because nobody measures the postcranial, although I do think it may have been bigger than 4 tons because it's skull is like, almost 6 feet long and pretty wide and robust, ofc I'm not gonna say for sure this is the case but 4.3 tons seems a little small (seriously it's been like 20 years, can someone properly measure and describe sarcos postcranial)

[stiff osprey]

giant extinct croc have measured postcrania challenge (IMPOSSIBLE) (500% fail)

[heady thunder]

Make it up (real)

[clever sable]

I am gonna raid wherever sarcos postcranial material is kept and force people to measure it

I think 9.5 meters and 4.3 tons is too small, but I also think 12 meters and like 8 tons is far too large but I also don't fully trust the size chart 2021 estimates that put it at 10 meters and 5 tons

[heady thunder]

9.7m and 5 tons so we meet in the middle.

[clever sable]

No because that's based on nothing other than being in the middle and I don't know if being in the middle is correct

[stiff osprey]

9-9.5 m is the result based on Terminonaris, which is actually related to Sarcosuchus, so that is the best length. Though I guess someone could try scaling off Termino using skull width instead of length

[clever sable]

Basically I won't put much trust in any sarco estimates until it's postcranial is measured

[clever sable]

What's more reliable, width or length? For some reason I feel like width is better but idk

[stiff osprey]

neither is too reliable when dealing with different genera at very different sizes, but an average of both would be nice

[clever sable]

Well, I don't know the skull width of sarco or terminonaris

[stiff osprey]

L

[tough parcel]

https://twitter.com/AmsonEli/status/1686460711013171201?t=3pMOeu1N6Rd1Q3XTBduh0w&s=33

EliAmson (@AmsonEli)

Tomorrow (2nd August) at 16:00 (London time), 11:00 (US Eastern Time): the big splash you've all been waiting for!

Twitter · Aug 1, 2023, 7:35 PM

[bright veldt]

I can’t get over this. THATS ONLY ONE VERTEBRAE

[clever sable]

Hyped for this paper, definitely my most anticipated paper

[clever sable]

That's only a single vertebra...... That thing looks absolutely titanic

[chilly knot]

Too damn real ong

[clever sable]

Does anyone know the DRCI of false Gharials

[clever sable]

"The “death roll” is an iconic crocodylian behaviour, and yet it is documented in only a small number of species, all of which exhibit a generalist feeding ecology and skull ecomorphology. This has led to the interpretation that only generalist crocodylians can death roll, a pattern which has been used to inform studies of functional morphology and behaviour in the fossil record, especially regarding slender-snouted crocodylians and other taxa sharing this semi-aquatic ambush predator body plan. In order to test this hypothesis, we surveyed death roll behaviour across animals representing all extant crocodylian species. Animals were prompted to death roll using two methods of stimulation: a feeding cue and an escape cue. The feeding cue involved presenting each animal with a bait item, to which resistance would be applied during a biting event. The second cue involved capturing each animal with a rope or catch pole, a standard technique for capturing crocodylians, but one that also often prompts an attempt to escape. All species tested, except Paleosuchus palpebrosus, exhibited the behaviour in response to at least one of the stimuli. This included the following slender-snouted species: Gavialis gangeticus, Tomistoma schlegelii, Mecistops cataphractus, Mecistops leptorhynchus, Crocodylus johnstoni, and Crocodylus intermedius. The patterns of death roll behavior observed in this survey suggest that this behaviour is not novel to any one crocodylian clade, morphotype, or dietary niche. Also, the prevalence of death rolling behaviour across Crocodylia in response to perceived threats indicates that it is not solely, or maybe even primarily, a feeding behaviour, but is also utilised during inter- and intra-specific conflict as a means to escape or injure an opponent. The results of this case study highlight the importance of using multiple modern analogues when attempting to correlate form and function across diverse clades, both living and extinct."

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/the-secret-of-the-crocodile-death-roll/

[bright veldt]

Oh you meant like that. I know they spun in an attempt to defend themselves I just thought you meant with biting.

[clever sable]

Ah ok

[bright veldt]

It makes the context a bit different. Like I’m sure Sarcosuchus would’ve “death rolled” in a similar matter if put in the same circumstances

[clever sable]

So tomistomas also have a very low DRCI but can preform a death roll.... So sarco may have death rolled? Idk that's what I got from this

[astral kelp]

it quite literally says it at the start

[clever sable]

Yes, but, tomistomas also have incredibly low numbers (0.11 and 0.2 compared to sarcos 0.18) and tomistomas are known to perform death rolls and intensely thrash prey

[sullen cairn]

https://www.alligatorfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Death-Roll-Drumheller-et-al-2019.pdf

[clever sable]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT5UmbBUc_k tomistomas can perform violent thrashing motions and even death rolls on prey (ofc death roll is kind of a misnomer, while it is occasionally used on live creatures or to escape from the bites of rival males, the death roll is actually primarily used in breaking up food)

[astral kelp]

Maybe there estimates are outdated now is what I am guessing, but I havent found any other recent paper that measures the DRCI in crocodyliforms

[woeful falcon]

Okay one can say false gharials are analogous I suppose

but they're not Sarcosuchus. they are not the same animal, not even remotely

[chilly knot]

Tomistoma underrated

[clever sable]

The point is, just that something has a low number doesn't mean they cannot death roll (as shown by tomistomas) but ofc this is just speculation that sarco may in fact have death rolled despite a low score but ofc that's all it is, amateur specialation so

[chilly knot]

Mfs took on cattle and tigers but the latter is anecdotal

[clever sable]

So sarco death rolling isn't completely impossible?

[bright veldt]

It depends on what you mean by death rolling.

Just spinning in water, death rolling to break up food, and death rolling to tear into struggling prey are very different things, likely with different stresses.

[clever sable]

Breaking up food

[sullen cairn]

Tomistomas have similar DRCI and can deathroll while feeding so seems feasible for sarcosuchus

[woeful falcon]

especially when considering the sort of animals sarcosuchus could have been tussling with

[elder kettle]

Can anyone tell me if the tail fin is accurate?

[white matrix]

Feathers?

[elder kettle]

Yeah

[white matrix]

Yea they likely would’ve had them

[elder kettle]

Ok, what about this pic? Achillobator btw

[pseudo linden]

Looks good thought it as a yutyrannus at first glance

[stiff osprey]

Keep in mind our dromaeosaur feather samples come from small species. We know the big ones had wings, but that's about it

[clever sable]

RIP sarcosuchus upsize 😭

[clever sable]

Wait when where nigersaurus and ouranosaurus downsized

[bright veldt]

Ouranosaurus is like 2.5 tons, and nigersaurus is like 3?

[clever sable]

RIP those guys lol, I don't doubt for a second sarco ate them

[compact leaf]

nigersaurus is in the 3-4 ton range yeah, so it’s pretty dinky even by rebbachisaurid standards

[clever sable]

How did lil bro survive in the erlhaz formation (probably just reproduced and grew really fast) although it wasn't completely defenseless it still had to live with sarco, sucho and eocarch

[delicate pelican]

i suspect ourano and niger might have just been absolute herbivore menaces to cope with their predators
but mostly niger cause that thing couldnt really run

[clever sable]

It's a 3-4 ton creature, if this skeletal is size accurate (which I'm kinda skeptical of but idk) it would be detrimental for it to be aggressive to stuff like sarco lol

[delicate pelican]

it looks squished

[clever sable]

Idk if this is better

[stiff osprey]

Lmao the squished hartman skeletal

Being aggressive to Sarcosuchus would be detrimental, but it's not going to escape Suchomimus or Eocarcharia on foot so it might as well fight

[pearl briar]

does 7-8.3 meters long & 2.4-4 tons ourano is still accurate?

[light osprey]

I suppose as a range it works

[clever sable]

You appear to use it in this size chart

[compact leaf]

I always take hartmans sauropods with a grain of salt, his titanosaurs are usually really good but other ones can have some issues (missing vertebrae and squishing being big ones) 1:30 slow mode is killing me

[stiff osprey]

yes, when it isn't horizontally squished it's good

[compact leaf]

it’s just painful

[pearl briar]

nigersaurus is 9-10 meters long & 3-4 tons?

[compact leaf]

thereabouts yeah

[stuck chasm]

While we understand users' frustration with chat cooldowns, please note that these can be set and altered throughout the day whenever a staff member feels it is necessary. These cooldowns are designed to help moderators and staff manage high traffic in the channels or prevent further potential rule violations. Otherwise, conversations related to the chat cooldown are considered off-topic.

[clever sable]

Not our fault there isn't an off topic chat, this server is set up very poorly tbh, long cool downs, no off topic, 4/10 wouldn't recommend but I'm staying because I have no other Paleo server things (please someone invite me to a Paleo Server or something grahhhh, I just wanna talk about prehistoric creatures)

[pearl briar]

how accurate is this rex model?
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/tyrannosaurus-rex-d44914f3fa654633b5445376fd4d5fcd

[astral kelp]

The face looks pretty stubby

[bright veldt]

better

[white matrix]

I like GATs the most here for Mirigaia

[pearl briar]

b i g p a u l
b i g p a u l

[heady thunder]

Spared all expense for the eyes.

[covert lintel]

ngl i've heard a lot of debate about which miragaia is Correct. what's the current info on that? is there any consensus, do we know anything, did it have the cool long plates distributed super densely or was it Normal, how long the neck, etc.

[bright veldt]

GAT’s is more rigorous with what we know but Ashley worked with the palaeontologists that are studying the latest miragaia remains for her reconstruction, including unpublished stuff.

[storm heron]

In that case, would it be more reasonable to assume that Ashley's Miragaia recon is the most accurate of the two?

[bright veldt]

You could go with either or. I go with Ashley’s.

[royal mural]

50 minutes left 👀 🐋

[compact leaf]

I just learned about it like 2 days ago but I’m hyped for this paper

[heady thunder]

50 mins for what?

[royal mural]

uhhhh

[heady thunder]

Is that, mosa?

[covert lintel]

That's Whales.

[royal mural]

^ ...

[heady thunder]

So basilo is the thing under the conventional whale?

[covert lintel]

i don't think that's basilosaurus. not noodly enough

[royal mural]

thats not basilo.. thats its bigger brother

[heady thunder]

Idk whale evolution, I just watched Walking With Beasts 5 years ago.

[chilly knot]

Tf

[royal mural]

from the article ive read its called perucetus n it said this.. 25m n 85-340 tons💀

[heady thunder]

85-340?! Talk about covering all bases.

[iron halo]

That’s a generous range

[compact leaf]

does anyone have a link to the paper?

[royal mural]

https://scilogs.spektrum.de/meertext/perucetus-colossus-kolossaler-urwal-aus-peru-schwerer-als-ein-blauwal/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02408-9

[clever sable]

That's the creature 💀

[royal mural]

💀 yes-

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1

[clever sable]

Is that a blue whale above it 💀

[royal mural]

look at how much it weighs ...

[clever sable]

Where do I see that info

[compact leaf]

I can’t get past the paywall how do the methods seem so far?

[compact leaf]

this is bizarre

[clever sable]

Well uhm ackchually according to the paper it's a 340 ton whale even though this is unlikely 🤓🤓🤓

[stiff osprey]

Not unlikely at all, i think this is very congruent with whale lifestyle

[clever sable]

What are your bets for it's actual weight?

[chilly knot]

Pufferfish whale

[covert lintel]

wh. why is it shaped like that

[royal mural]

ate too much burgers i guess

[bright veldt]

This thing’s basically a manatee but you made it a 100 ton predatory whale instead

[royal mural]

85-340 but my guess is around 190-220 tons for the biggest maybe

[bright veldt]

I doubt it’s bigger than a blue whale myself. But still 80+ tons.

[keen forum]

i would say about 80ish

[clever sable]

I'm guessing roughly as large as like a fin whale maybe? Although 100+ tons is pretty likely

Possibly 140-160 but that's stretching it

[bright veldt]

Right whales at 16 meters long get up to 80 tons, and this guy is longer, just as beefy if not more, and denser than a blue whale. It’s probably bigger than that imo.

[keen forum]

even it being denser i don't see the same amount of soft tissue they have here

this is just waay to much on this animal and there is no good enough reason here for them to be basing it off of sienians, from waht we have it doesn't even have the build to hold that much soft tissue

[clever sable]

They took inspiration for the PHP sauropods

[keen forum]

must have

[clever sable]

If this is actually looks like I'm gonna laugh

[keen forum]

https://twitter.com/DigitalLife3D/status/1626271691763482629
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/model-93a-blue-whale-mesh-51a1e06a393b4817bf5cdbc484a4cddc

how a blue whalke is built like

Digital Life (@DigitalLife3D)

Female Blue Whale 3D model is now available! Check it here! https://t.co/vctfGa4YSA
(Free download for non-commercial use)
To learn more, check out this publication: https://t.co/lO0TI8DXRg

Twitter · Feb 16, 2023, 5:26 PM

[clever sable]

And we thought shonisaurus was a sea blimp 💀

[keen forum]

i don't like how it still has hands

[clever sable]

Early whales go brrrrrr

[keen forum]

the soft tissue is horrible imo that's way to much

[clever sable]

Nah this is definitely totally real 100% (even though it's definitely not 340 tons it's still probably like 80+ tons)

[steady rock]

whats the new whales name?

[sullen cairn]

Dave

[keen forum]

Perucetus colossus

[bright veldt]

Do you see this thing’s vertebrae? This is not excessive by any means lol.

[keen forum]

yes i do see it's verts and that amount is still excessive

[bright veldt]

It’s a whale. It absolutely is not.

[keen forum]

that's the point it's a whale why is it using sienians as a soft tissue ref

[bright veldt]

Some of the most bricked out vertebrae of any cetacean on top of being denser than the blue whale.

[steady rock]

whos the better prehestoric sea blimp?

[chilly knot]

The reptile by default

[clever sable]

I mean, it's kinda excessive but it's not far too much, it's still realistically possible, like, it's not that bad, it may be a slight overestimate of soft tissue but it's still not that bad

[bright veldt]

Shoni might be surpassed considering it likely wasn’t that round.

[sullen cairn]

Counterpoint, the reptile doesn’t look like a mushy banana with baby arms

[bright veldt]

I’m pretty sure it’s based less on sirenians and more on other basilosaurids, which kinda makes sense considering how massive and wide the vertebrae is, compared to the already present other bones

[keen forum]

it can be all that that, but it won't give you the right to use creatures outside of its family to base it's soft tissue on when it has none of the adaptions of holding it not only that these animals are herbivores as well that give them that bulk, and no they based it on sirenians not any basilo, cause if they did it would be a lot skinner

[steady rock]

could they hug eachother or are their arms to useless/short for it

[keen forum]

idk i don't think they can? if your talking about the new whale

[steady rock]

yeah

[woeful falcon]

What basilosaurids have you seen that look like this

[clever sable]

I don't mind how robust it is, the biggest issue with the reconstruction in my opinion in it's tail "fluke" it's literally just the tail of a manatee, which is kinda a weird choice

[keen forum]

none but it seems like sme artists are already sliming him down a lil bit going off of this guy https://twitter.com/branartworks/status/1585794097138356226?s=46&t=tUb_izmZum0jnPzVKRV9wg

Jaime Bran|| Illustration🐳🐬🦭🎨 (@BranArtworks)

Antaecetus aithai, a new peculiar pachycetine basilosaurid, animals that were even slower than dorudontines and basilosaurines (more similar to modern sirenians in movement) and probably fed on fish and invertebrates. #paleoart

Likes

435

Twitter · Oct 28, 2022, 12:42 AM

[clever sable]

That's not perucetus.... That's literally from Last year.....

[keen forum]

they are using that animal as a ref .......

[woeful falcon]

Oh Jaime does good work. I look forward to their eventual take

[clever sable]

Well don't say they are slimming perucetus down when it's just a close relative that's been slimmed down, now as I said I don't think it's as robust as pictured here but I also think it was more robust than the average basilo

[chilly knot]

The model doesn't have swept back ribs, so the torso depth is likely exaggerated of Peru

[keen forum]

they are using the close relative to slim him down, that's what they are doing

[woeful falcon]

Seems you missed the all important words "going off of this guy"

[clever sable]

Yes I did indeed miss that

[stiff osprey]

It's based on sirenians. We have no soft tissue from basilosaurids

[tiny holly]

Man really puts into perspective how weird early cetaceans are compared to modern ones. Literally every single modern cetacean has a pretty huge head compared to their body. Even in dolphins their heads are a decent size. Basilosaurids though are all like....... 95% body 5% head

[clever sable]

Boi is still fat (credit to randomdinos)

[keen forum]

ah random has killed him

[woeful falcon]

Random already doing blessed work

[clever sable]

Un pinheading the Beast

[keen forum]

In Random We Trust

[steady rock]

https://twitter.com/JoschuaKnuppe/status/1686784159371476992/photo/1

Joschua Knüppe (@JoschuaKnuppe)

"Perucetus from the deep, what is your wisdom?"

Let us welcome the new, largest archaeoceti!

Likes

345

Twitter · Aug 2, 2023, 5:00 PM

[woeful falcon]

I'm liking the build of this guy so far, looking like its not absurd in the length department like basilo

[clever sable]

This is still almost certainly one of the largest prehistoric Whales ever

[keen forum]

if that head is correct that is a scary sob

[tiny holly]

Oh for sure, the picture of a researcher next to some of the vertebrae is still pretty insane

[keen forum]

@bright veldt a better way to do the soft tissue if you haven't seen it yet

[tiny holly]

has no right having spine this big

[steady rock]

https://twitter.com/RBINSmuseum/status/1686754280785481728

RBINSmuseum (@RBINSmuseum)

#sciencenews An ancient #whale could rival the blue whale as the heaviest animal ever. The newly described Perucetus colossus from the middle Eocene of #Peru pushes extreme growth in whales to a much earlier phase in their evolution than previously thought https://t.co/uEPjs9a0Lx

Likes

232

▶ Play video

Twitter · Aug 2, 2023, 3:02 PM

[clever sable]

My guess will remain that it's probably around 70-80 tons possibly even 100+ but 70-80 is more likely

[chilly knot]

Already more based than Megalodon

[keen forum]

hopefull there will be a gdi done on it soon

[bright veldt]

My bad

[sudden wind]

There are no reasons for visible hands.

[sudden wind]

Antaeucetus has similarly build ribs and vertebrae.

[keen forum]

https://vxtwitter.com/BranArtworks/status/1686797524974137355

[covert lintel]

that's a nice lad. still got a tiny head and a thick body, but the proportions are way more sensible

[clever sable]

I wonder how heavy that reconstruction is

[keen forum]

one day we we'll see

[sullen cairn]

published
immediately nerfed

[heady thunder]

Sucks to suck

[keen forum]

the downsizer strikes again

[heady thunder]

Upsize it again

[stiff osprey]

If we assume it was very blubbery and dense, the 85 tonne estimate from the paper may be possible. But no higher

[honest wave]

I love our new chunky lad, but I wish less research papers were like "omg i just found the biggest thing ever and it rewrites evolution!!"

[stiff osprey]

it seems they did that to get funding for the rest of the dig. which. valid

[bright veldt]

^ it’s still the largest extinct whale known so it’s not an L tbh

[nocturne gazelle]

The bones found are from an adult right?

[stiff osprey]

Yes, there are indicators that bone growth had stopped

[honest wave]

Fair enough, but still symptomatic of a larger issue. Science shouldn't be so inaccessible to both researchers and the people who want to read their findings that "clickbaiting" becomes necessary for serious work to get done.

[compact leaf]

every new titanosaur before getting hard downsized

[tough parcel]

Random is the downsizer

[clever sable]

We need more people to downsize it so the ignorant masses can learn through many different sources that it wasn't 300 tons

[heady thunder]

Upsize it, Im tired of the blue whale.

[clever sable]

Blue whale cool tho....

[heady thunder]

I dont like the hegemony it has on the biggest animal ever.
I liked it more when the 100+ ton sauropod estimates were around full force.

[clever sable]

Well, if you hate it that much just say hector's ichthyosaur may have been bigger (don't actually do this, it's an awful idea, the only known remains of hector's icthyosaur were lost in a shipwreck hundreds of years ago)

[heady thunder]

https://tenor.com/view/hector-gif-11253742

[red willow]

when the hell did O. Megalodon become 127 tons?

[light oxide]

That's most likely an over estimate. By a lot.

[chilly knot]

All the media is capping with "ong bigger than blue whale" rn

[ancient crystal]

I stopped taking paleo stuff in mainstream media seriously when I saw an article about a new predator discovered that hardly reached a ton and the first sentence was "move over T. rex"

[bright veldt]

Nope. It’s real.

[sullen cairn]

That’s what happens when you name a 4m abelisaurid something stupid like “the fearful harbinger of doom of the eastern wind”

[stiff osprey]

• -, estimates of 106-108 tonnes are equally valid as the 122-127 t ones for a 20 m meg

[ancient crystal]

Tyrant lizard king just isn't good enough for people anymore

[clever sable]

Nope, it's accurate

[bright veldt]

There’s been various studies on megalodon appearance, size, and ecology over the past 5 years or so. The largest megs were in the ballpark.

[clever sable]

Also that livyatan is too large btw, newer estimates put it at 12.5 meters

[light oxide]

Huh -- did it get upsized at any point? Or am I just uninformed?

[bright veldt]

The 20m size (and thus the 100 ton range) is from Perez at al. from 2021

[light oxide]

Mmm, so there was a recent discovery I didn't know about. Okay then.

[astral kelp]

yea livy is 12.5m ~40t

[red willow]

For a 15-18 meter shark?

[bright veldt]

50 tons or so

[red willow]

I doubt any Meg could reach 100 tons

[tranquil quartz]

I think it’s definitely plausible for them to reach 100 tons or more

[red willow]

That sounds as unrealistic as 300 ton perucetus

Aren’t sharks supposed to be relatively lighter than cetaceans at same length and girth due to their cartilaginous skeletons?

[ancient crystal]

I've never heard that before. I'd think it would be the opposite since they don't have as many air cavities

[tranquil quartz]

Perucetus has high estimates of around 340 tons, how realistic is this? I think it may just similar to what happened with Dreadnoughtus.

[astral kelp]

Not realistic at all

[ancient crystal]

It got immediately downsized from what I've seen

[bright veldt]

It’s more in the 70-80 ton range now

[tranquil quartz]

How recently was it discovered?

[royal mural]

Officially?

[bright veldt]

It’s from a gdi that gave it proportions more according to relatives https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/512496784547905547/1136352488065347594/image.png

It’s insane chonkiness was due to its body being reconstructed like a manatee’s, which isn’t really the most supported thing, even if it’s still insanely chonky and slow-moving for an early whale

[stiff osprey]

Gimme a couple minutes and I'll post a rigorous skeletal

[chilly knot]

[heady thunder]

Welp, RIP bozo, lost 200 tons immediately.

[tranquil quartz]

💀

[keen forum]

ah fat

[white matrix]

Well one thing I've learnt about animals and life is that it gets kinda crazy

[astral kelp]

Sea blimp

[white matrix]

Current estimates for Argentinosaurus put it in the range for 80-100 tons.

[bright veldt]

75-85 tons really

[tranquil quartz]

How heavy would an Argentinosaurs neck have been? Is there any estimates in tons?

[compact leaf]

if you scaled to another titanosaur and did a gdi on it someone could figure it out but I don’t think anyone has measured specifically the neck, doesn’t help that argent is sort of fragmentary

when I say sort of I mean very, we don’t even have the neck from it

[stray wren]

All sauropods are very very fragmentary, save few exceptions

[compact leaf]

diplodocoids are the best preserved as a whole, we have a few really well preserved titanosaurs but most of them are fragmentary, and brachiosaurids just refuse to preserve well

[tranquil quartz]

I’d assume they are so fragmentary due to their vast size? The chance of all their bone’s fossilising would be next to none.

[honest wave]

In general the bigger something is, the less likely it is to completely fossilize. This is seen across dinosauria, with the exception of tyrannosaurus for some reason, which decides to fossilize nicely regularly.

[bright veldt]

Sauropods also have super fragile skulls. Shoutout to Nemegtosaurus for basically being 100% complete…..except the head was gone.

[honest wave]

Kind of a chad move on its part, it has my respect

[compact leaf]

yeah there’s just a super low chance of them being buried quickly at such large sizes, it’s why we usually just find one or two disarticulated pieces

[white matrix]

Wait wheres bros tail gone 💀

[bright veldt]

WIP. The finished one has the fluke.

[clever sable]

Finished version

[red willow]

The Vividen on YT is not an accurate channel, right?

[white matrix]

Ahh makes sense sry my brains bit doodoo rn

[clever sable]

Who is that?

[red willow]

https://youtu.be/rOVWVgVCiKc

He gave the largest Meg a minimum length of 15-16 meters based on the new vertebrae found

[bright veldt]

The problem is that it’s a bloody tooth

[pearl briar]

ahh perucetus...
the nikocado avocado of the whale

[clever sable]

Not anymore

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/brandon-herrera-ak50-thicc-damn-rear-trunnion-gif-19257419

[bright veldt]

For an early whale that is still obsurdly hefty

[stiff osprey]

Largest whale that isn't a filter feeder, as well as the largest animal in the world in its time, and the second largest whale overall by average size

[white matrix]

Honestly the fact Argentino got to the size it did while being an herbivore is insane

[stiff osprey]

I'm confident we haven't yet found the sauropod equivalent of a blue whale either. There's several sauropods that rival/come close to Argentino in size, while the blue whale is an outlier that is 50+ tonnes larger than the next largest whale

[clever sable]

Bruhathkayosaurus obviously (this is a joke)

[white matrix]

Honestly tho I think Argentino could rival blue whale in length

[stiff osprey]

oh that's easy, my reconstruction of argent is .5m longer than the biggest blue whale lol

[white matrix]

Well yeah but I feel Argent is close in weight

[tranquil quartz]

Not really iirc The Blue Whale is a lot heavier than Argent

[clever sable]

No, Argentinosaurus is like 85 tons, average blue whale is like 150 iirc and the largest recorded is 190 I think?

[stiff osprey]

average blue is 100

[white matrix]

Like I said similar weight

[tranquil quartz]

Not really

[white matrix]

If Average Blue is 100 then yes Argentino is similar weight.

[clever sable]

It's 15 tons smaller, that's not similar

[tranquil quartz]

I wouldn’t consider something that is around 15-20t heavier similar weight

[white matrix]

The largest blue was nearly 200 tons so let's assume that the Argentino we found was average then the biggest was probably around 120-130

[bright veldt]

I wouldn't do that

[clever sable]

That's a baseless estimate, don't use baseless estimates, the blue whale is like, much larger than argent

[white matrix]

Okay Larger or Longer?

[tranquil quartz]

I mean there is a limit to how big things can get on land, whales are only so big because water and weight don’t get along. I don’t think 110-130 a Argent is possible

[compact leaf]

argent and several others exceed blue whales in length, in weight they’re not really similar

[clever sable]

Larger, size is measured in mass, not length or height

[white matrix]

Mass and weight are pretty much the same thing

[clever sable]

I keep writing height but it autocorrects to weight 💀

[tranquil quartz]

Not really Mass is the measure of how much matter is in something, Weight is the measure of the size of the pull of gravity on something

[white matrix]

I feel people use them interchangeably.

[bright veldt]

Because for all intents and purposes it is the same thing

[tranquil quartz]

Yeah the weight of something is directly proportional to the mass it has, but they are different things

[white matrix]

I'll say this from what we know Argentinosaurus is the longest creature to ever exist. It's also nothing to scoff at considering it's weight is around 85 tons. The only problem the Argent would have is moving blood around it's body. However if we take a look at trees we see that they grow to incredible sizes regardless of their weight. So I believe Argent could grow to at least 110 but not much past that.

[clever sable]

The largest recorded blue whale is like 50 tons larger than the second largest creature lol, that's what makes me feel like there may be a couple creatures that may be in the 120-150 ton range, if there is a creature larger than a blue whale it's either a icthyosaur or a prehistoric whale and not a sauropod (at least this is my guess)

[bright veldt]

Argentinosaurus isn't the longest. The longest animals are supersaurus and barosaurus (generally the same 40m length anyway).

[white matrix]

Imo I still consider Argentino to be the largest land animal

[stiff osprey]

Argent could almost definitely grow to 120t+ sizes, it just needs a not very vertical neck posture so that blood can reach its head safely

[tranquil quartz]

It is, you don’t calculate size by height or length

[clever sable]

Size is only measured in mass

[white matrix]

I feel Argent could compete with some blue whales but not with the larger ones.

[tranquil quartz]

I know

[clever sable]

Do we still have the material for the aust colossus? Was it just recently found? I'm very interested in this creature as it's supposedly like 130+ tons

[white matrix]

Also earlier someone said 15-20 tons is a lot and while yes it is when you compare to these sizes it's a little more lenient

[white matrix]

Sadly the fossils we have of it are from Antarctica right? Argentino I mean

[clever sable]

I dunno, I don't think so

[tranquil quartz]

Thought they were from the UK

[white matrix]

Really? I heard they found the fossils in Antarctica. Maybe I'm wrong.

[bright veldt]

Aust Colossus is UK. Argentinosaurus is from Argentina, hence the name.

[clever sable]

Here are some big icthyosaurs, idk who is who other than the grey one is hector's ichthyosaur, also know that most of these are undescribed and in the case of hector's ichthyosaur undescribed and lost at the bottom of the ocean

[clever sable]

And do we still have the Aust colossus fossil?

[bright veldt]

Yes. It's discovery was quite recent.

[white matrix]

How big is it estimated to be

[clever sable]

Like 130-150 tons iirc? Although since it's not described take these with a grain of salt

[bright veldt]

Yeah I don't take it that seriously. If it's not diagnostic enough to name then it's not good enough to scale.

[white matrix]

Also did you guys see that recreation they did of a trex with the skeleton of I believe it was Sue? She looks gorgeous.

[clever sable]

Maybe one day it will be described

[white matrix]

https://youtu.be/cBQmTdElvas
Here she is and she is gorgeous.

[bright veldt]

Bit too fat but it's still great.

[tranquil quartz]

I just want KG description 💀

[clever sable]

Also the lilstock monster which is estimated to be smaller at 110-120 tonnes but same case, take it with a grain of salt

[stiff osprey]

I'm going to guess these mega icthyosaurs are in the same size range as the other non-blue-whale giants. Somewhere between Perucetus and megalodon

[clever sable]

Icthyosaurs are the largest animals of the mesozoic right?

[stiff osprey]

using conservative estimates sauropods are larger, if not then ichthyosaurs are larger

[clever sable]

Shastasaurus/shonisaurus is 81 tons and 21 meters and aust and lilstock are larger by a good bit from what I heard (although didn't Shasta/shoni get downsized?)

[stiff osprey]

Shonisaurus is about 30t and Shasta's not much bigger, in fact it's skinnier, but longer. No more than 40t

[clever sable]

Ok so it was downsized, I'm guessing this happened when we stopped estimating icthyosaurs while thinking they are sea blimps?