paleontology

[stiff osprey]

I think 80 t shasta comes from scaling Shonisaurus to 21 meters, when in reality Shasta is neither built like shoni nor 21 m long

[clever sable]

Isn't Shasta possibly shoni? Also how long is it because I just hear 21 meter estimates everywhere

[stiff osprey]

That was one paper ages ago, it might be its own genus but is closer to Shasta/Guanlingsaurus than to Shoni. It's 18-19 m long

[clever sable]

It's too bad we lost the material for hector's ichthyosaur, it's literally the aquatic amphicoelias

Its vertebra supposedly had a diameter of 457 mm but take that with a grain of salt, it's speculated to be a shastasaurid iirc, but this is an incredibly dubious animal as it's material was lost when the ship transporting it sunk or it is in a private collection

[astral kelp]

Mass and weight aren’t the same thing

[bright veldt]

That really doesn't matter in this context

[clever sable]

So uh, let's place bets, what like, type of creature do you think is most likely to approach blue whale sizes other than whales? I'm going with icthyosaurs and maybe possibly some sauropods?

[tiny holly]

I doubt we'll find sauropods much bigger than argentinosaurus. That thing was pushing the limits of what should be possible. But I could see ichthyosaurs getting close in theory, they seemed to like getting very big even early during their evolution and adapted to a wider range of feeding strategies. Being blue whale sizes makes active predation uhhhh not good, so being able to feed in a more efficient manner would be important. ichthyosaurs look like they could have been up for the task

[stiff osprey]

don't need to actively predate leaves 😎

[tiny holly]

but gravity

[light oxide]

Here's a good discussion question -- how long would it take for a dinosaur to grow into an adult?

To my knowledge, currently, hadrosaurs were the fastest growing dinosaurs, becoming adults the moment their predator counterparts are adolescents. Second "may" be sauropods, at least the younger stages of them, with the adolescence to adult being much slower, I think.

Just how I see it. What do ye all think?

[tough parcel]

I mean, as in all animals, it’d vary heavily between species so that’s a very vague question

[light oxide]

Fair -- just thought that it may be a good discussion question.

[stiff osprey]

Ceratopsian growth is also incredibly fast, which to me suggests they have some form of hadrosaur esque parental care, and we just haven't found their nests yet

Especially the smaller ones, Einiosaurus is effectively full sized in 4 years or so

[sullen cairn]

What being over half the size of your predators does to a mf

[pearl briar]

yeah imma just repost this again for argentino size info
(yeah they're not same size as blue whale)

[wary heath]

could perucetus actually be bigger than the blue whale?

[pearl briar]

nope, he's 18.3 meters long & 66.4-73.1 tons while blue whale is around 30 meters long & 100-122 tons

[elfin pulsar]

It’s the largest extinct whale but blue whale still biggee

[wary heath]

Why is there so many drawings of it with a manatee tail.

[pearl briar]

ask the artists

[nocturne gazelle]

Probably just theoretical

[misty portal]

A lot of paleoart is theoretical since we don't have much to go off of. Just look at Spinosaurus. That creature gets new theoretical designs constantly. Finding an intact fossil for Spinosaurus at this point is like finding the Holy Grail.

[pearl briar]

BEHOLD, THE CHONKER

[storm heron]

So we have a extremely massive raptorial whale that surpassed a lot of modern whales in terms of size: what was it preying on or what conditions/factors could have potentially influenced its size?

[clever sable]

Apparently it probably ate crabs and shellfish and other stuff on the seafloor from what I've heard

[viscid surge]

Yk I’m pretty sure we have an ok amount of spinosaurus, it just keeps changing because of how strange it really was (correct me if I’m wrong guys)

[heady thunder]

They can feed themselves with just crabs?

[misty portal]

As far as I know only 7 Spinosaurus fossils have been found. An issue made worse since some of them were destroyed in WW2 after the museum they were housed in was bombed by the Allies.

I'll need to brush up my research to confirm that though.

[bright veldt]

There are suggestions by the authors of macropredation and even herbivory (if very unlikely). Perucetus was most likely a slow moving benthic feeder that hunted in shallow waters, considering its immense bulk that left it lacking for speed, and it’s close relatives having a similar lifestyle.

[viscid surge]

That’s true but I don’t think spino is as egregious incomplete as… actually as many dinosaurs

[misty portal]

We don't even know if the Morroco specimen is 100% the same type of animal as Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Spinosaurus is very much incomplete. The reason we know the general shape of the creature is because the spines and what little else was found, and it's distant relatives like Suchomimus and Baryonyx have had more complete specimens.

Hell for the longest we had the general shape wrong. Just remember the JP3 abomination.

[tough parcel]

"Abomination", it was the best for its time

[woeful falcon]

Well, lets not discount the neotype. It's still fundamental to recons and the "general shape". The reason we had the JP3 abomination is because it used Baryonyx and Suchomimus. Was the best we had at the time

[bright veldt]

JP3 was unironically the best spino reconstruction at that point yeah lmao. They also went conservative on the size. They made it the same size as a trex (12m or so) when the size estimates of spino at that time were 18m which is insane to think about today lol.

[misty portal]

Oh yeah I get that. Nowadays though that thing. It haunts me.

[tough parcel]

I quite like the JP3 Spino, it's cool

[bright veldt]

Suchomimus is becoming the JP3 spino over time so it’s not done with you lmao

[misty portal]

Specially weird given that the JP franchise has just kind of decided to keep that design. It works as a movie monster I guess. Granted let's not get started on JP accuracy. Velociraptor is already a sin even at that point in time.

[bright veldt]

Deinonychus

[misty portal]

Not even Deinonychus is man sized. Utahraptor fits better.

[clever sable]

Utahraptor wasn't even discovered yet, also Utah is way too big

[bright veldt]

Utahraptor’s head alone is the size of a man’s torso.

[clever sable]

Found this

[misty portal]

Honestly it fits the JP raptors better. Deinonychus is still too small. Granted JP explains it's inaccuracies by saying their DNA was filled in with other animal's DNA.

[clever sable]

It wasn't even discovered by the time jP takes place

[bright veldt]

I think production knew about it at the time tho

[misty portal]

The raptors were made man size to make them scarier. That's honestly the simplest explanation.

Even though I wouldn't want to get swarmed by a flock of accurate Velociraptors anyways.

[heady thunder]

Yeah, thats like a big deinon. They named them velo cos cooler name also, its a movie in the end.

[misty portal]

JP did bring some valuable insight to the table though. It got people thinking about how these animals would have actually behaved.

[heady thunder]

The leap from dinos in media post jp compared to pre is gigantic

[misty portal]

I remember the scene of the Rex playing with the car being praised at the time. Minus the don't move stuff.

But the test biting of the tire and pushing it around is similar behavior curious predators do exhibit sometimes.

Not to mention the Rex probably used it's mouth for exploratory purposes similar to a shark. Kind of hard to check things out when your arms are so short.

[dreamy basalt]

Guys are you see a chance to devs make a Puru for official?

[heady thunder]

Puru the best, after sarco ofc

[misty portal]

Not sure. We already have Sarco. Might be difficult given the Puru fills a similar niche.

I'd enjoy Postosuchus since it could be a more land based croc.

[dreamy basalt]

Yes but we only have one dino from this family. It would be awesome to have Puru. It would be apex.

[tranquil quartz]

Isn’t Purru a crocodylian and Sarco a Crocodylomorph? They aren’t even in the same families iirc. Wait nvm im wrong

[misty portal]

I'm not as well versed in crocadilians. I'm more Spinosauridae.

[chilly knot]

Ur right

[dreamy basalt]

Idk. Im just searched in Google: Deino family. And find this what i sent.

[bright veldt]

Purussaurus is a caiman. Deinosuchus is an alligatoroid. Sarcosuchus is a pholidosaur.

[misty portal]

Scanova is right.

[tranquil quartz]

Scanova is always right

[misty portal]

Puru would make for a cool apex creature. I'll keep rooting for Postosuchus though. One of my personal favorites.

[tranquil quartz]

I just want a playable large temnospondyl, don’t know how they would make it work but I just want it

[misty portal]

Give us a real Dilophosaurus.

[vocal breach]

Dentaeosuchus:

[clever sable]

That is highly inaccurate

[covert lintel]

i'm all for modders adding purussaurus, but as an official playable it'd be redundant since sarcosuchus already exists (and is massively oversized, on par with some of the larger deinosuchus estimates iirc?)

anyway. Palaeontology

[covert lintel]

btw, you are correct that they're not in the same family, and in fact, you're also correct that puru is a crocodilian and sarco isn't. scanova was just bein' more specific

[sudden wind]

Spinosaurus is like one of the most complete Spinosaur now with Suchomimus.

[sudden wind]

Thing is that other Pachycetines aren't suggested to be benthic feeders, based on tooth size and wear. However, we know that the ecology can shift between different taxon so, for now, Perucetus lifestyle remains a mistery.

[ancient crystal]

Are there any good diagrams showing how complete spinosaurus is?

[misty portal]

When you look at what we have, it's really not. We have barely found any fossils. The most complete one being the tail, which was a massive stroke of good luck since the tail can be used to help infer how the animal walked. However paleontologists still argue about how it got around. Most of what we have put together from Spinosaurus has been looking at their relatives and making educated guesses.

[sudden wind]

Sereno's et al. 2022.

Spinosaurus is about 70% complete when you include isolated materials, "Neotype" and Holotype.

[tough parcel]

(The tail should be longer based on newly discovered vertebra)

[sudden wind]

^From the same specimen that is the Neotype, first described in 2014 with supplementary materials in 2020.

[heady thunder]

70% complete and people cant make up their minds if it walked or not.

[tough parcel]

You shall soon see

[misty portal]

Not to mention the original specimen that was discovered was destroyed which unfortunately destroyed any valuable info modern pelontologists could have gleamed from them in person.

[tough parcel]

Nope, Stromer's notes are so incredibly detailed, we can still use em pretty well to decipher (AFAIK anyways)

Also frick this slow mode, my goooooood

[clever sable]

Isn't there an upcoming spinosaurus paper that has to do with it's arms or something?

[misty portal]

Yeah, it's to help settle the debate of whether it was quadrapedal, bipedal, or both.

[heady thunder]

I hope its bipedal 🙏

[misty portal]

Unfortunately even with notes, paleontologists back then made a lot of inaccurate claims and conclusions. Working with something hands on can be a massive help.

[tough parcel]

The drawings and description of the bones themselves are well-done, I've been told. Doesn't matter what Stromer concluded from them

[clever sable]

I seriously doubt it was a quadruped

[sudden wind]

Paleontologists mostly made mistakes because no other Spinosaurs were known back then until the 70's with Baryonyx. And yet, a link wasn't done before the 90's/2000's.

[clever sable]

If spinosaurus becomes a quad I'm gonna have a stroke

[heady thunder]

Im going to be sad.

[misty portal]

I'm leaning on mix. It could choose depending on the situation. It is honestly funny how Spinosaurus has caused paleontologists so many headaches and bickering amongst themselves.

[sudden wind]

It's nothing next to Helicoprion, Thylacosmilus and what has to come with Perucetus

[misty portal]

One will release a paper, then another goes "You're wrong and here's why!" Then another says "Actually you're wrong and here's why!" Then another goes "You're wrong, but I do agree with this specific thing!".

Just remember to pour one out for Troodon.

Poor thing is no longer considered valid.

[covert lintel]

honestly i'm still personally leaning towards quad re: the spino posture debate, but i do have a bad habit of clinging onto things for a little too long.
i just hope we find some arms, honestly. (or if we already have them, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE JUST DESCRIBE 'EM ALREADY)

[misty portal]

Spino just doesn't want to admit it missed every arm day like the T. Rex.

Speaking of T. Rex, I got to see Sue once. That was a cool experience.

[clever sable]

The arm description is apparently coming in the upcoming paper from what I've heard

[misty portal]

The arms are probably the key we need to settle the debate.

[covert lintel]

the arms have been upcoming for what feels like years

[stiff osprey]

and it's based on nothing

[red willow]

Does anyone know of a skeletal of dinofelis?

[wary heath]

nah that thing definitely hunted other cetaceans

[chilly knot]

Ibrahim announced something for this year (we already have August bro)

[bright veldt]

Ysure it just wasn't the Chicago Museum exhibitation?

[compact leaf]

was he affiliated with that?

I feel like he would have teased us a little bit with it beforehand if he was but maybe not

[royal mural]

what did he announce?

[red willow]

Is this bodyplan still accurate or is it just as ridiculous as the papers illustration?

[tough parcel]

Use this one

[red willow]

Also this is hodari nundu’s art

[bright veldt]

Still a fat bastard, especially for its kind, but not overly insane.

[sudden wind]

Probably didn't fed on seagrass
Too chunky
Wasn't probably as slow as a manatee
Tail should be cetacean like and not manatee like tbh
The body isn't long enough

Most Hodari's art piece are sort of off anatomy wise.

[tranquil quartz]

Is it the second largest cetacean after the blue whale?

[stiff osprey]

Going by average sizes yes

[heady thunder]

Max size or bust

[stiff osprey]

Going by largest, it is behind the blue, fin, right, and sperm whales

[sudden wind]

Right whales are the opposite of Basilosaurids.

[bright veldt]

I did top 10 biggest animals out of curiosity. Extinct animals using max and modern animals using averages.

1. Blue Whale (24m, 100 tons)
2. Megalodon (20m, 100 tons)
   3+4. North Pacific Right Whale & Bowhead Whale (16m, 80 tons)
   5,6,+7. Argentinosaurus & Bruhathkaysaurus (34m, 75 tons), Perucetus (18m, 75 tons)
   8+9. Puertasaurus (30m, 65 tons), Maraapunisaurus (27m, 65 tons)
3. Brachiosaurus – 25m, 60 tons

[bright veldt]

This image makes me so sad. Look at how thin the North Atlantic one is.

[clever sable]

Out of all of those creatures maraapunisaurus is definitely the most dubious imo

[heady thunder]

Why sad, hes just using a speed build

[bright veldt]

If you don't know, this picture comes from a study a few years back on the struggles that North Atlantic right whales face. Them being that thin isn't natural. Within their range, so much crap gets caught on their bodies, fins, and tails, that the sheer weight of it makes them lose weight from the increased effort it takes just to swim.

[red willow]

Wouldn’t the 100 ton megalodon from Perez et al 2021 be an overestimation?

[clever sable]

Nope

[bright veldt]

It's max megalodon size, which is why blue whale's #1 despite them having the same dimensions on said list. That's megalodon at it's best. Blue whales hit that number on the regular and many exceed it.

[wary heath]

what do you mean by that

[stiff osprey]

giant head, orb body

[sudden wind]

Same

[wary heath]

you just described most modern whales

[stiff osprey]

Not really, rorqual bodies are really elongated
but rights have the proportionally largest head of any whale

[covert lintel]

most whales are actually quite longshaped

[dreamy sleet]

yo my bros who wanna talk about the tanystropheus

[pearl briar]

hmmm
n e c c

[rose gate]

Is bruhathkayosaurus real or not?
(Just confirming)

[heady thunder]

I think they lost the evidence, so its dubious? Idk

[sudden wind]

https://twitter.com/fishboy86164577/status/1677388625099497485?s=61&t=CdSkoh5uEqSQN2zcDiEViw

Tosha (@fishboy86164577)

My reconstruction of Tanystropheus hydroides, a large (up to 5 meters in length) and semiaquatic ambush predator that used an elongated neck and laterally-directed strike of the jaws to hunt aquatic prey.

Likes

547

Retweets

105

Twitter · Jul 7, 2023, 6:46 PM

[tranquil quartz]

I mean we literally have zero fossils from it, they turned to dust years ago. It may be real I believe but we can’t make any accurate estimates because we have no evidence,
So Argent is still the largest sauropod
Its also theorised that the original fossils were petrified wood, I’ve heard this spread around.

[split seal]

Wait wasn't dreadnoughtus largest? Or nah

[woeful falcon]

Nah

[tranquil quartz]

Dread got like immediately downsized iirc

[compact leaf]

it’s kind of a trend with titanosaurs that a new one pops up and everyone says it’s the new largest, then it gets hard downsized

[misty portal]

Yeah, some of the sizes purposed at first can be ridiculous. It's funny the sizes can be so overblown, yet the head be shrink wrapped to hell.

[rose gate]

What about the Amphicoelias fragillimus? Is the size still large?

[iron halo]

Didn’t it get lumped into maraapunisaurus

[clever sable]

It got renamed to maraapunisaurus fragillimus, also it was massively downsized when this happened (still big tho) also it's super dubious

[rose gate]

This one?
(Credit to SpinoinWonderland)

[clever sable]

Nope, more like this (maraapunisaurus is the one on the top in the first image)

[floral valve]

Blue bettle

[white matrix]

Is allo’s bite really only as strong as a lion?

[balmy gust]

Yeah I believe so

[white matrix]

How tho?

[stray wren]

Proportionally. If It was the size of a lion their bites would be similar in strength. Allosaurus's bite is just as strong as any other theropod at the time

[balmy gust]

Allosaurus didn't have powerful jaws like other dinos so it's bite wasn't that strong

[woeful falcon]

Proportionally is a big distinction

Its not only as strong as a lions bc that would be kinda sad

[still prairie]

I'm pretty sure [tho i haven't checked] that it was at least a bit stronger

[stiff osprey]

Weirdly enough, we have no idea how hard a lion bites. It's been put as low as 1000 newtons in one study and 8000 in another. Which entirely brackets the bite force of Allosaurus, so a lion could be proportionally weaker or absolutely stronger than Allo at the same time

[clever sable]

Why have we not measured a lions bite force

[still prairie]

I don't think anyone wants to find out personally

[sudden wind]

It didn't, it was much stronger

[white matrix]

Good, I had a hard time believing that

[light osprey]

Allosaurus’ posterior biteforce is 9300 Newtons. No idea what a lion’s should be

[balmy gust]

Which was longer Carcharodontosaurus or Giganotasaurus?

[clever sable]

Giganotosaurus

[balmy gust]

Alright

[next moss]

no

[ancient crystal]

Does anyone have that image of in game ano compared to the unreal engine human? Pretty sure I've seen it here before when talking about ano and anky

[elfin pulsar]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/870623329839611924/1069767413408743564/IMG_5984.png

[ancient crystal]

Thank you

[elfin pulsar]

Np

[sudden wind]

They really just made Ano Anky

[ancient crystal]

That's what I've been saying.

People don't need an anky mod or anything, its right there!

[heady thunder]

Anonkylosaurus

[nocturne gazelle]

B-but anky is bigger than ano!

[heady thunder]

Make bars sized anky

[viscid surge]

You joke but if AG didn’t have some obsession with finding strange dinosaur names, we probably would have a bars sized Anky 💀

[heady thunder]

Nah, wed probably have a gigantoraptor sized anzu

[somber tartan]

Question: Is spinosaurus even a valid species anymore? Because with every study and paper that comes out, it just seems more and more impossible for it to have ever existed because apparently it just sucks too much to have been able to basically do anything but breathe.

[clever sable]

It's definitely valid

[ancient crystal]

Spinosaurus feels like a disappointing finale to the spinosaur lineage.

Oh no, they got to the point where they apparently couldn't walk or swim. How sad.

[somber tartan]

Spinosaurus was a snake confirmed. It’s arms and legs were vestigial

[white matrix]

Pelican easily best Dino ever

[stiff osprey]

Spinosaurus being unable to do anything according to papers just shows that paleontologists get things wrong sometimes. It lived over continental distances for 10 million years, it was damn good at what it was doing

[somber tartan]

The question is: what the hell was it doing

[white matrix]

Being awesome

[bright veldt]

That depends if the individuals in Bahariya and Kem Kem are the same taxa which they're probably not. But no instead of the scientists figuring that out they'd rather have a dick-measuring contest on whether or not spino was aquatic, in which both sides are probably wrong btw. It frustrates me.

[somber tartan]

We need new people to study spinosaurus, cause the whole argument on wether it was aquatic or not is leading to the idea of this stupid thing

[stiff osprey]

The Bahariyan taxon is nearly identical in appearance to the Kem Kem one, with the short legs, elongated torso and giant sail, so whether they're the same species matters very little anyway

[jagged trellis]

all i have now is the mental image of countless religious figures scratching their heads on what spino is, i feel like even spinosaurus itself doesn't know what it was

[bright veldt]

We literally don't have legs from bahariya so idk what ur on about

[stiff osprey]

1. the holotype has a sacrum preserved, which is just as disproportionally small as in FSAC; 2) ''Spinosaurus B'' from Bahariya has legs

[bright veldt]

Ok yknow what fair enough. It has more than I thought.

Still doesn't explain the drastically different verts though, which has been chucked up to individual variation despite the fact that we don't even know what a normal spino looks like to begin with, and the neotype not really having the qualifications for a neotype. There's just a lot with the taxa and whatever else related to it that hasn't been settled.

[compact leaf]

we can at least be somewhat sure about the big dentary being the same species as the holotype with how good stromers notes were, so that's better than nothing I guess

[lavish frigate]

How dare you blaspheme the names of the great Spinofaarus

[somber tartan]

Spinofaarus can jump off a cliff. I hate it and I want it to die

[ancient crystal]

Spinofaarus gonna end up like the walruses in Our Planet

[lavish frigate]

He is beautiful 😤

[viscid surge]

I genuinely dont understand why spinofaarus triggers people so much 😭🙏

[nocturne gazelle]

Because they hate memes

[lavish frigate]

People who hate memes have not lived

[woeful falcon]

it's not that they hate memes

they hate bad memes!

[viscid surge]

Still doesnt explain spinofaarus hate

[lavish frigate]

Spinofaarus is amazing 😤😑

[woeful falcon]

it is a bad paleomeme that's why

and very overdone if you ask me

[lavish frigate]

I think the elephant seal spino is a most splendid goober

[viscid surge]

(The solid white bits are all known fossils)

[lavish frigate]

Him and Spinofaarus deserve a play date or something

[nocturne gazelle]

Overdone doesn't mean it's bad, just old.

Imo it's a good meme and represents all of the chaos involved with discovering what spino actually looked like, while still being funny.

[woeful falcon]

its also bad, like, how many times can you say you saw spinofaarus and had a good hardy laugh

more than exhaling from your nose once in amusement

[nocturne gazelle]

Every time, we can laugh at it every time

[woeful falcon]

I realize I'm beating around the bush. Humor is subjective, sure. The real answer of why spinofaarus gets a lot of hate is because some people don't like it. A lot are probably annoyed by it, especially if it gets reposted frequently with no substance to why it's being posted

me I'm of the latter portion. I don't care too much about spinofaarus bc unlike some paleomemes, people don't take that one seriously. But man it can be grading seeing it posted for no reason

[frigid coral]

It was funny the first two times, and the concept before it got turned into a joke was cool, but now? Eh

[woeful falcon]

actually, there is a version of the spinofaarus meme that I actually think looks kinda neat. lemme try and find it

[frigid coral]

Someone made a cool resin model of it

[woeful falcon]

found what I was looking for, it was an All Yesterdays contest entry not spinofaarus. but it has a vague resemblence to spinofaarus

[clear wolf]

Since everyone is posting these Tyrannosaurus Vs. any large Theropod posts, here's some facts that show there really is no comparison.

T. rex had conical, serrated teeth, that could slice flesh easily and also crush bone thanks to its huge bite force that was 16x stronger than the bite of an American Alligator, and at least 3x that of Giganotosaurus. Tyrannosaurs are also hypothesised to be gregarious. Social animals, and also there is plenty of evidence of physical confrontations between T. rex individuals. T. rex was built to be able to survive a mauling from members of its own species, as well go head on with the toughest herbivores around. No other carnivore was taking on Ceratopsians, Ankylosaurs and large Hadrosaurs.

Spinosaurus is only 2.36m tall at the hils, whereas T. rex stood 3.9m tall. Also, Spinosaurus' diet was primarily piscivorous, ambushing fish from the surface that would be 300-1,000kg. It's bite was comparable to a 9m terrestrial theropod.

Giganotosaurus lived with Sauropods, but relatively smaller Sauropods like Limayasaurus. Smaller Sauropods, and especially young individuals are defenceless, especially in comparison to the armoured herbivores Tyrannosaurus hunted.

Giganotosaurus likely ambushed prey quickly, causing the animal to go into shock and also bleed heavily and rapidly. There is substantial evidence for how T. rex hunted. Triceratops specimens have been recovered with horns bitten off, indicating T. rex did not need the element of surprise. It was prepared for a long, hard fight. If T. rex was not able to get things done in one bite, it was also prepared to take a bite and chase down the animal for miles and for days.

Tyrannosaurs were more agile than other Theropods, as indicated in this paper - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6387760/

[nocturne gazelle]

Spinofaarus and bars had a kid, and it's glorious

[clear wolf]

Giganotosaurus had side-facing eyes, giving it better perception around its body, indicating it was well-suited to attacking herd animals. This supports a strategy of causing panic within a Sauropod herd, and being able to pick out the most vulnerable members of the herd, such as juveniles, sick or old members of a herd.

Tyrannosaurus had large, forward-facing eyes, great binocular vision, suited for tracking down animals over a long distance, it could ambush unsuspecting prey or be able to fight a single, adult individual head on, ideal for, perhaps, tracking a Triceratops down and trying an ambush, but also being able to keep its focus on the Triceratops if the element of surprise is lost, leading to a physical confrontation or chase.

Here are the most recent statistical estimates for the 3 largest, often compared Theropods.

Spinosaurus

Length - 14m
Height (at the hips) - 2.3m
Mass - 7,400kg
Anterior bite force - 4,829
Posterior bite force - 11,936

Giganotosaurus (in the bite force study in which I'm getting my results from, Giganotosaurus was not included so I will be giving the estimated bite force of Carcharodontosaurus. Expect Giganotosaurus bite force to be slightly greater).

Length - 12.5m
Height (at the hips) - 3.7m
Mass - 7,600-8,000kg
Anterior bite force - 11,312
Posterior bite force - 25,449

Tyrannosaurus

Length - 12.8m
Height (at the hips) - 3.9m
Mass - 9,000-10,000kg
Anterior bite force - 25,418
Posterior bite force - 48,505

[nocturne gazelle]

Neat

[stiff osprey]

Spinosaurus lost its amusement when we found its legs, which was in 2014. Then it further became unfunny when we found its tail in 2020

[nocturne gazelle]

@heady thunder how does this make you feel about in game rex?

[chilly knot]

Im bored so I will beat the hell out of these estimates now

[chilly knot]

nuh uh

[elfin pulsar]

What were some of yutyrannus’ prey choices?

[compact leaf]

there's some smaller stuff from the formation like psittacosaurus lianingosaurus and beipiaosaurus and then probably juvenile liaoningotitan too

[white matrix]

Tyrannosaurus rex

[elfin pulsar]

Thanks

[compact leaf]

juvenile dongbeititan and ruixinia would also be on the table

[bright veldt]

Yutyrannus coexisted with sauropods and iguanodonts so

[light osprey]

I wouldn’t call Beipiaosaurus small

[compact leaf]

not small just smaller than yutyrannus, I could have phrased that better

[sullen cairn]

beipiaosaurus uses projected adult size

nobody cares because that's stupid

[rose gate]

I don't know why it sucks in land and later cannot swim efficiently. It's like taking away all it's survival rate overall. The nerf is too much

[rose gate]

It may not that strong but it's teeth is design to shred and it's known to eat a live prey.

[balmy gust]

I like the way allosaurus would hunt it's prey tbh

It's mouth was able to open up wider than other carnivores so while biting that would be effective

[half crypt]

Wasn’t the original spinofaarus satire?

[stiff osprey]

Always has been

[lavish frigate]

This actually inspired Spinofaarus if I recall correctly

[white matrix]

It didn’t have side facing eyes it still had binocular vision

[pearl briar]

yeah but it's still worse than rex vision

[pearl briar]

Nope
Spinosaurus is 10.56-14.2 meters long & 3.2-7.8 tons

Giganotosaurus is 12.7-13.5 meters long & 8.8-10.4 tons

Tyrannosaurus is 11.6-12.4 meters long & 7-10.4 tons

but the bite force of they're 3 is accurate

[eager skiff]

He prob did the holotype specimen for giga as its 8 tons, so hes not wrong, and he said 7.4t for spino and 9-10t for rex, thats not far off

The length is quite off tho

[covert lintel]

tbf, tyrannosaurus is an exception among non-avian theropods in terms of its superb binocular vision. it was kind of the norm for 'em to have Acceptable But Not Great binocular vision, so i think it'd be hard to make any reliable assumptions about their hunting strategies based on this.

[white matrix]

Still I find it insane that Tyrannosaurus had such an incredible bite force of I believe 12,000 pounds per square inch

[storm heron]

Didn't some/most Dromeaosaurids and Troodontids have great binocular vision (Also Lythronax's binocular vision seems to be similar to that of Tyrannosaurus).

[covert lintel]

there might be other exceptions to that trend, idr. there's a reason i said it's An exception and not The exception, there's always smth i don't remember

[heady thunder]

BOOST THAT TURNING BY LIKE 30%, and thats it.

[white matrix]

Bruh spoon really looks like spoon just saw it u hold it by its tail

[pearl briar]

all i can say is fat

[viscid surge]

Anyone else think it looks bubblewrapped or just me

[bright veldt]

That shasta’s outdated either way

https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/external/hiJITLFsEWz_dlEgZFTADb0SXWH7XRBfxOohQvIJqPU/https/pbs.twimg.com/media/FJ084SCX0AU_saR.jpg%3Alarge

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/breaking-bad-walter-white-gif-20348263

[viscid surge]

I don’t know much about ichthyosaurs but this is an ironic drawing right?

[bright veldt]

No? Shoni’s the sea blimp, not Shasta.

[pearl briar]

NOOOOOOO SHASTA ISN'T FAT ANYMORE 😭😭😭

[viscid surge]

Why is shoni the sea blimp not Shasta? Is it just built plumper in the bones and stuff?

[bright veldt]

And that’s just S. sikkanniensis. Get a load of S. pacificus

[viscid surge]

So this is basically a prehistoric mako shark?

[bright veldt]

The whole reason why sikanniensis has been fat was because it was thought to be a species of the much more complete Shonisaurus, so it was based on it. But now that it’s Shastasaurus it got a bit more complicated, and now that’s the best guess base on current info.

[bright veldt]

S. pacificus wasn’t doing speedy things, but we’re not really clear exactly cause it’s such a weird and not entirely understood genus in general.

[viscid surge]

Is shasta super fragmentary or something then?

[bright veldt]

Yeah

[viscid surge]

Makes sense

[bright veldt]

Well, looking at it it’s not that fragmentary, but it’s still enough alongside its back and forth between whether sikkanniensis is shoni or Shasta that it gets confusing.

[viscid surge]

When did all the apex ichthyosaurs go extinct? End of Triassic?

[scenic flame]

I always loved Iodine

[ancient crystal]

[viscid surge]

To disinfect wounds right?

[scenic flame]

to bleach a random patch of my skin for a week every now and again

[heady thunder]

[white matrix]

what about perucetus colossus? is it the new blimp?

[ancient crystal]

I hate its little legs

[white matrix]

yeah just noticed them

[heady thunder]

Thats a bit too big iirc

[compact leaf]

yeah it got changed pretty quickly, they were using manatee proportions instead of a whale and they really shouldn’t have

Ugueto did a more updated version

[heady thunder]

Do any of you guys have that paper or resarch on how much Rex could lift with its head by using its jaws?

[white matrix]

ah okay, that looks way more natural already

[nocturne gazelle]

I hate the nubbins still

[covert lintel]

y'all just don't appreciate the teeny tiny legs of primitive whales

[white matrix]

Sosig

[ancient crystal]

[bright veldt]

Ichthyosaurs in general were largely apex predators for the majority of the time they existed. In some places it was them, in others it was pliosaurs.

They just stopped being at truly gigantic sizes after the Triassic (the only exception being the early Jurassic temnodontosaurus)

[viscid surge]

Ah ok

[white matrix]

Lmfao thats adorable

[pearl briar]

Astorgosuchus: a large crocodyloid that preyed on big mammal
Also Astorgosuchus:

fat boi

[light osprey]

Real

[pearl briar]

what kind of pliosaur "Predator X" is?

[woeful falcon]

Pliosaurus funkei

[heady thunder]

Did the paper about the spino arms come out yet?

[pearl briar]

nobody:
not even a single word from god:
Dakotaraptor:

[snow python]

Is dilophosaurus 400 kg estimate still up to date

[woeful falcon]

I forgot about Alderon turtle

[white matrix]

No

[heady thunder]

https://tenor.com/view/bladerunner2049-ryan-gosling-gif-24048514

[bright veldt]

It’s more like 650 now

[light oxide]

It still amazes me that Dilophosaurus could even reach those sizes, considering the other fauna it was with at the time:

(Unless, of course, there were other fauna that have been discovered that aren't in that chart.)

[heady thunder]

Werent there like, protosauropods at that time?

[compact leaf]

I’m not sure if there were any in the region but they did exist yeah, some of them were already getting pretty huge too

[sullen cairn]

There was sarahsaurus but that was a third of dilo’s size

[light osprey]

Scelidosaurus was in Kayenta I think

[heady bay]

You might be thinking of its smaller relative Scutellosaurus because Scelido is only known from the British Isles last I checked.

[compact leaf]

scelidosaurus or at least something very similar is present in kayenta

[bright veldt]

Scutellosaurus. Scelidosaurus is the English isles.

[sullen cairn]

There’s some osteoderms assigned to scelidosaurus

[compact leaf]

yeah it's just some osteoderms, scutellosaurus is present too but the osteoderms don't belong to it

[bright veldt]

Unlikely to be Scelidosaurus itself

[compact leaf]

that’s why I said it’s likely something similar

[heady thunder]

I believe this is not the place for it.

[livid reef]

Yes sorry wrong chat place

[light osprey]

Seems like a sister taxon to Scelidosaurus proper is present at the very least

[little mauve]

Genera & groups still had a fairly cosmopolitan distribution in the early Jurassic, preceding much of the breakup of Pangea

[vocal breach]

someone send a good carch skeletal pls

[pearl briar]

https://twitter.com/DanPalaeon1/status/1571113979627581440?s=19

Dan Folkes (@DanPalaeon1)

Carcharodontosaurus saharicus was the largest terrestrial predator in its environment, and one of the largest theropods of all time.

Thanks to a commission by Grimnir, I completed a multiview skeletal diagram of this impressive taxon.

Likes

1502

Retweets

264

Twitter · Sep 17, 2022, 12:28 PM

[bright veldt]

There a gdi of this thing yet?

[stiff osprey]

yeah, this recon is 7 tonnes

[bright veldt]

Is that written down anywhere or not yet?

[stiff osprey]

Dan never GDIed it himself, so it was a third person thing in a private server. That is how much it weighs tho

[pearl briar]

ukhm ackhually she's 7.4-8.2 tons 👆🤓

[jagged aspen]

Shrink the tail more

[white matrix]

U drew it?

[pearl briar]

a guy by the name interesting box 9696 on reddit (a.k.a. Silvereyes12 on DeviantArt) is the one who drew it

[white matrix]

Hol on was it about the flying carno wp? If so yea they didnt credit the artist which is why i asked

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/um-uh-head-scratch-awkward-hmm-gif-17561719

[twilit notch]

????????

[pearl briar]

ok forget abt that
any cool rex facts you guys can share to me?

[dreamy sleet]

the teeth were huge

[heady thunder]

Gigachad

[twilit notch]

Teeth were the size of a banana and that is a rex fact

[dreamy sleet]

the eyes faced forwards like a human for good eye sight

[white matrix]

Its deleted now but yea was an uncredited artist copy paste also in the wrong channel

Anyways rex was smart change my mind

[jagged trellis]

to be fair most animals are smart, anyways rex has a solid movie career and a stable income

[covert lintel]

most dinosaurs were probably pretty smart tbh, a lot of animals have more going on in their brains than we give 'em credit for
tyrannosaurus was almost definitely not complex-tool-making primate-type smart tho, it's got a powerful brain but a good chunk of that power went to Sniffing Things Very Efficiently

[dreamy sleet]

yea my dude the birds of today might be smarter than most of the animals in todays existence

[white matrix]

I'd imagine rex was mainly a scavenger but could hunt if needed

The scent capacity for a rex was incredibly complex and accompanied by its vision and the fact it probably produced a low grumble that you didn't hear but felt it in your body it would have been terrifying to see it.

[heady thunder]

[lavish frigate]

Oh frick they said the thing…..

valley of the T.rex intensifies

[light osprey]

https://tenor.com/view/jonah-hill-no-chill-out-bro-nah-fam-gif-16233135

[honest wave]

Category five Horner moment

[white matrix]

There is significant evidence they could have. The rex because of its massive bite force could have shattered bones to eat and gotten to the rich bone marrow in it that was full of nutrition. The rex wasn't nearly fast enough to catch most dinosaurs it would have lived with.

[light osprey]

So uh, what exactly was actively hunting all these megafaunal herbivores in North America at the time

[nocturne gazelle]

Nothing, they just got bite wounds from their imaginary friend

Now if you reversed what you said and instead say rex was primarily a hunter who could scavenge when they needed to? Sure.

[ancient crystal]

Right, right, because every predator is automatically a pursuit predator

[tough parcel]

Tbf, Fast and Frugal paper compared tyrannosaurs to wild dog-type pursuit predators

But also, rex was the fastest multi-ton animal in its environment, didn't need to be Usain Bolt

[covert lintel]

being able to crush bone does not make an animal a scavenger. predators also benefit from being able to eat bones and bone marrow, because it's a source of nutrition, and buys them some more time before they need to make another kill.
plus, it's just not feasible for a large animal like tyrannosaurus to rely primarily on scavenging, especially without any other carnivores to make kills - that would mean it relied on other large dinosaurs happening to drop dead frequently and consistently. even vultures can have trouble relying on scavenging, and they're smaller, more capable of travelling large distances to find carcasses, and tend to live with predators that'll kill things.

[stiff osprey]

I suppose "scavenger that could hunt when needed" is technically correct... "when needed" being 90% of the time

[nocturne gazelle]

Right, unless something else is killing enough multi ton animals to properly sustain a healthy rex environment.

[tough parcel]

Adult Nanotyrannus...

[light osprey]

Nah, mega packs of Dakotaraptor

[tranquil quartz]

Bloodthirsty Triceratops

[ancient crystal]

Guys, clearly herbivores just fought endlessly with each other because all dinosaurs were bloodthirsty lizards

[frozen basin]

So true so true

[heady bay]

If Rex was too large to be a predator that means many of the other predatory theropods it’s size were also likely predominantly scavengers since you use tyrannosaurus speed as a reason for its lack of hunting even though when compared to other megatheropods like Giganotosaurus or Mapusaurus, Tyrannosaurus has more adaptations for running.

[heady bay]

Also if the more active and fast growing lifestyle is anything to go on it would have needed a lot of calories to get through the day and that much carrion isn’t going to just be lying around to feed a population of very large bodied active carnivores especially when smaller and faster opportunists and flying scavengers will likely get to any carrion in the area and strip it clean first. That really only leaves hunting as a viable method of survival for animals like Tyrannosaurus which it could do since while it was slow it was still more than fast enough to keep up with the majority of large bodied prey animals in its environment. Most potential prey items such as Triceratops, Torosaurus, Ankylosaurus and Denversaurus were slower than T. rex while animals like Edmontosaurus were around the same speed if not only marginally faster.

[ancient crystal]

I can only imagine people who genuinely believe rex to be predominately a scavenger are those who listen to Jack Horner, and I don't really get why. Isn't he a hadrosaur specialist, not an authority on Tyrannosaurus?

[frail robin]

Yes, he did a bunch of stuff on hadrosaur parenting iirc

[compact leaf]

back in the day he did a lot of really influential work on a lot of dinosaurs and he made some huge forward progress for the field, then he fell really hard and we got stuck with the Jack Horner of today

[bright veldt]

It also doesn’t help he took credit for the discovery of the egg mountain site when it was somebody else tmk

[compact leaf]

yeah it was someone else who actually found the site, he was the one to start excavating and studying the fossils

[lavish frigate]

Only really good stuff Jack Horner has done is hadro stuff the pachy Draco thing and his consulting on Jurassic park (except for jp3 with the hyper Agro apex spino….) and also he’s the reason that Rex soft tissue stuff happened

[ancient crystal]

What ever happened with the rex soft tissue anyway?

[covert lintel]

i'd hesitate to say Any palaeontologist Never Did Anything Useful (on account of They Almost Definitely Did), so i won't say that. but i will say jack horner is responsible for a good few frustrating misconceptions iirc and i do not like him very much

[stiff osprey]

He was great in the 90s, but didn't really evolve after that (ironic). Same for Greg Paul, he was one of the most forward paleontologists out there when he wrote his first book, now he's the funny neighborhood old man

Horner is also just not a good person for non paleontology related reasons

[frail robin]

At least Mark P. Witton remains as the gigachad he is

[honest wave]

I can't believe we actually got a wild ScavTruther today

[viscid surge]

I dont know much about paleontologists, so i could be wrong, but i feel like in a career spanning decades you’re bound to make some big oopsies lol

[covert lintel]

i can't either! they're an endangered species these days

[honest wave]

Shame Horner has to do so much stupid stuff. He has certainly made a few valuable additions to the science, but it gets to overshadowed by his mountains of garbage that it can be hard to pick out the stuff that's worthwhile.

[compact leaf]

a lot of really important paleontologists also tend to lurk in the background these days, Jim Kirkland is still doing a ton with utahraptor as we speak but you don’t hear about him often

[sullen cairn]

instead of scavenger rex we have this wonderful paper
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304380022003593

[viscid surge]

enjoy this platy animated emoji. Can anyone tell me about platy?

[honest wave]

Platy is the oldest animal in the game (coming from the carboniferous) and is surprisingly faithful to its irl appearance

[viscid surge]

Cool! Does it bear any relation to dimetrodon?

[covert lintel]

honestly i'm not fond of that paper but it does at least hold a little bit of water. sauropods are huge, they don't need to die super often to feed a good few carnivores for a While (as long as those carnivores can digest carrion, which the paper does automatically assume, but yknow.)

[ancient crystal]

Platy looks like a cartoon and the discovery that it actually looked like that made my day

[sullen cairn]

not really

[honest wave]

None at all. Platy was an amphibian, while dimetrodon actually isn't too far removed from mammals. It just so happens that having a sail was popular fashion for the time.

[viscid surge]

Just remembered its a temnospondyl. That’s just goofy. Frog lookin fella with teeth and a sail

[covert lintel]

animals love havin' weird sails. 'specially non-mammals, iirc sails have never been In Fashion in mammalia proper?? we've got plenty of humps tho

[light osprey]

Morrison progressively getting more horrible. Sauropods dropped dead so often a population of multi-tonne theropods could be maintained

[viscid surge]

Mammals dont seem to be very flashy with the colours and display thingies, i could be wrong but i think we’re more “functional” than say, a sailfin molly? Mammals seem to favour horns and manes and stuff for display no?

[stiff osprey]

Hard to get creative with color displays when you can't see color lol

[honest wave]

Not to my knowledge. True mammals tend to go for humps for display of size, muscle attachments, or fat storage. I can't really think of any with true sails.

[viscid surge]

Dont mammals generally have better colour vision than say, fish, amphibians and reptiles? Dogs can see a few colours cant they?

[honest wave]

But yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it has a lot to do with mammals' general lack of reliance on detailed vision. While there are plenty of reptiles and amphibians with less-than-stellar vision, mammals almost universally have terrible color and detail vision. Primates are an exception, since you need at least decent vision for arboreal life.

[covert lintel]

we do definitely get weird with display structures, 's just a more familiar type of weirdness, generally.
plus a combination of Generally Bad Colour Vision (most mammals are missing two cones that showed up back in fish, iirc - UV and smth else) and trouble getting certain pigments to hold in fur has made a lot of us a bit limited in terms of flashy colours

[light osprey]

I’m certain mammals as a general trend have the stinkiest of color vision

[stiff osprey]

Reptiles certainly have better color vision than mammals. Fish are disadvantaged in that regards because even if they can see, colors fade very quickly underwater.

Now amphibians, I have no idea

[compact leaf]

for color vision in general we’re worse than a lot of other vertebrates, reptiles and birds in particular outclass basically everything

[viscid surge]

You’re telling me mammals overall have worse colour vision… than fish? This all comes as a shock to me to be honest, i always thought mammals had some of the best vision. Not mantis-shrimp vision but up there.

[ancient crystal]

In the same vein as mammals not having sails, couldn't the same be true for non mammals not having antlers.

Idk, two thin branch like bones sprouting from your skull and falling off every season is pretty weird.

[stiff osprey]

under 500 feet of water neither a mammal nor a fish will see any colors, and on land, fish will drown, so it's hard to compare the two

But neither is great

[honest wave]

Yeah mammals tend to have the worst. Even humans have pretty bad vision, just better compared to other mammals.

Plenty of reptiles can actually see in completely different spectrums of light. Birds in particular have this ability. They have a lot more incentive to have fancy visual displays because of this. They already look vibrant to us, but they are actually even more colorful to members of their own kind.

[tough parcel]

Sounds like you haven’t tried hard enough

[stiff osprey]

How many fish must die until you're satisfied

[honest wave]

This is also probably why mammals seem to be the only things that have evolved echolocation multiple times. Apparently our eyes are bad enough that it's easier to literally just get superpowers

[covert lintel]

assuming the fish is in shallow enough water for all those colours to actually show up properly, and is also part of one of the clades that can see UV light, Yeah
i'm not sure that all fish can see in UV, but a considerable chunk of them can, at least. as random said, the wider range of colour vision is sorta balanced out by the fact that as you go deeper into the water, fewer of those colours can actually be seen, but in theory some fish can see more colours than any mammal can

[viscid surge]

Bats and cetaceans… what else? Just those two or more?

[light osprey]

Love that answer lol

[ancient crystal]

Iirc sharks, or at least certain species, have really poor color vision. So not all fish have better vision than mammals

[viscid surge]

Aren’t a few fish somewhat warm blooded? Sharks, marlin tuna and the like i believe? Big oceanic fish?

[honest wave]

Sharks actually arrived on one of the classic mammal solutions, funnily enough. They just got really good noses.

[sullen cairn]

yeah they can warm up their muscles and stuff

[ancient crystal]

Arrived at the classics before they were even a thing

[sullen cairn]

and you also have mesothermic naked mole rats and hyraxes

[covert lintel]

if you really think about it, mammals arrived at the shark solution

[honest wave]

Convergent evolution is a hell of a drug

[viscid surge]

It’s been too long since i was really immersed in aquaria so i cant provide the Latin, but there are a examples of fish from Southeast Asia convergently evolving practically the same as some South American fish they haven’t seen in millennia

[covert lintel]

thinking about the (north?) american bird with almost the exact same pattern as an african bird despite the two being very distantly related and not sharing any range. i dont remember what eithjer bird was called but i wish i did. i love this weird stuff

[stiff osprey]

these are two animals separated for longer than the nonavian dinosaurs have been extinct

and they look the god damn same except for thylacines having a more sloped forehead

[viscid surge]

One of the most common examples of convergent evolution is stripes in fish. Ive never thought of it like that actually

[covert lintel]

Climaciella brunnea deciding to be both a wasp and a praying mantis at the same time

[viscid surge]

Pseudomystus heokhuii, from Indonesia i believe, VS microglanis ihringi from South America. Both around 10cm long. The internet will say 6cm for the Indonesian one, but either way its this species or a very very similar one ive seen at around 10cm.

[honest wave]

Just as amazing to me is the similarities between the patterning of various non-avian dinosaurs to modern animals.

Sinosauropteryx and coatimundi are a great example of this

[covert lintel]

ngl sinosauropteryx reminds me more of a red panda. long-tailed fluffy animals love being red and stripes

[honest wave]

Yeah sinosauropteryx, coatimundi, and red pandas all kinda have the same thing going on. I picked coati though since they are less arboreal than red pandas to my understanding.

[sullen cairn]

Iridescence is kinda cheating but still

[honest wave]

The black iridescence of microraptor and various modern corvids is another interesting thing, as well as the prevalence of black in other near-avians or early avialans. If I remember correctly, the current theory is that melanin was highly favored for strengthening flight feathers.

[covert lintel]

little birdthings love being black and shiny. there are many trends in nature

[honest wave]

Also interesting is how similar anchiornis looks to a ton of woodpeckers. I don't know if theres a survival-based reason for this or if it's more just sexual selection favoring nice patterning though.

[elfin pulsar]

Oh do we know its colors?

[covert lintel]

i would guess it's a mix of "black good for strengthening feathers" and "high contrast attracts the eye, black and white is highest contrast possible" with perhaps a touch of "bright red also attracts the eye, although as this is from a human perspective im not entirely sure how birds feel about that one"

[sullen cairn]

There’s also that we’re comparing only a couple dinosaurs with over ten thousand species of birds so they’re bound to be overlap for one reason or another

[honest wave]

Yeah we know the colors for a few dinosaurs. Microraptor, anchiornis, sinosauropteryx, psittacosaurus, and borealopelta are some off the top of my head. I know that we have some evidence for patterning without direct colors in some others, like archaeopteryx and (kinda) edmontosaurus.

[stiff osprey]

since the red is only in a (presumably puff-able) head crest, almost definitely meant to attract the eye

[sullen cairn]

Also caihong and wulong and I’d imagine a few more

[honest wave]

Edmontosaurus is a bit more shaky since it's more determining patterning through the organization of how the scales are shaped and sized, but they seem to be organized in a way that demonstrates clear stripes and spots. Archaeopteryx we can just tell that the feathers had some dark regions on them though iirc.

[sullen cairn]

Both of which I think had iridescence too

Lotta iridescence going around

[tough parcel]

We can't tell scale color based on scale size, this has been demonstrated in modern crocodilians

[bright veldt]

Also the fact that such patterns would be quite difficult to produce on animals so large

[elfin pulsar]

I was gonna say being able to tell color based on scale size seems too cool to be true… so ig it isnt lol

[stiff osprey]

to be fair, crocodile scales are completely unlike dinosaur ones in shape and distribution, and examples do exist of correlation between size and color in lizards and dinosaurs. It's not a reliable thing though, and you can't tell which color a particular scale size would be anyway

Psittacosaurus has feature scales on its chest that are notably darker than the smaller scales surrounding them, while iguanas have feature scales on the neck that are notably lighter than the small scales

[pearl briar]

the only funniest thing i've ever heard is animal that ends with -saurus, but it's not a dinosaur

[honest wave]

I had specified you can't tell the color, just maybe infer there was a pattern present.

That's why I listed it separately and called it shaky. It's more than we can infer for a lot of things, but it's still barely anything to go on.

[honest wave]

Wait 'til you learn what dinosaurus itself is

[elfin pulsar]

Isn’t there like a dinosaurus that isnt a dino

[honest wave]

Yeah, it's a therapsid lmao. Not even a reptile.

[pearl briar]

dinosaurus means "dinosaurs" in indonesian language (in my language)

[tranquil quartz]

Dinosaurus is a therapsid

[honest wave]

Makes me wonder what dinosaurus would be called lol

[ancient crystal]

When dinosaurs is translated into "terrible lizard," isn't the actual meaning "great lizard" or something?

Think I heard that somewhere

[sullen cairn]

fearfully great lizard

[covert lintel]

it means terrible lizard(/reptile), but it's terrible as in "inspires terror", not terrible as in "absolutely sucks"

[sullen cairn]

that said they are pretty terrible at being lizards

[covert lintel]

true, true. they're much better at being birds

[sullen cairn]

but yeah it's usually translated as "terrible lizards" though owen's intended etymology was explicitly "fearfully great"

[light osprey]

Would that be a concurrent definition for the same word “terrible”

[sullen cairn]

yeah they mean pretty much the same thing as mozartean said

[pearl briar]

nah they're terrible at everything, even they really terrible at holding chopsticks

[white matrix]

The only reason I said that it was not a quick dinosaur was because of the fact that studies have shown that if ran faster than roughly 13 miles per hour it would break it's leg with the amount of force it would generate and just the weight of it.

To be fair however Elephants weigh a large amount and they can run pretty fast so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility. However Elephants don't weigh nearly as much as a Tyrannosaurus Rex

[bright veldt]

If ur talking about rex than that can’t be true yeah. Elephants can run faster than that and tyrannosaurus was a more cursorial animal

[signal frigate]

Quick question;
Does anyone know of any good sites for recent palaeontology news?

[light osprey]

I think some do weigh as much as Tyrannosaurus. Or at least google tells me there’s one that weighs 11000kg

[white matrix]

Really? Last time I checked most Elephants weigh 5-6 tons not 10 tons lol

[storm heron]

Keep in mind not every Tyrannosaurus was a +10000kg giant.

[light osprey]

That would seem to be the average size (referring to Elephants not Tyrannosaurus)

[stiff osprey]

13 mph for Tyrannosaurus is also a misreporting, its maximum speed is 18 mph (the max speed of a young, healthy elephant is around 15 mph)

[tough parcel]

But Jurassic Park said 50mph

[compact leaf]

the heaviest elephant on record was also over 11 tons just for the record, it doesn’t bear much on this convo just thought I’d throw it out there (most african elephants are in the 5-7 ton range)

the average weight for elephants is also a bit skewed to the lower end unfortunately, most bulls don't make it to their full size potential before they're killed

[woeful falcon]

Excuse you it was 32 😡

[lavish frigate]

‘Twas it Not 35??

[light osprey]

It’s 32

[lavish frigate]

Hmmm I must be misremembering

[pearl briar]

ok now i'm just confused
how fast is rex again?

[bright veldt]

25 mph give or take?

[pearl briar]

nah
imma stick to 15-16 mph rex speed

[astral kelp]

Rex going at 40 km/h, seems odd

[bright veldt]

Eh idr think so. 15-16 mph is elephant speed and tyrannosaurus is the more cursorial animal

[sullen cairn]

that's just behind albertosaurines

[woeful falcon]

Random legit just said 18 like 10 comments ago

[astral kelp]

thought random said 18 mph was the max

[tough parcel]

Larramendi threw out 18-20mph (20mph+ can be achieved as the caudofemoralis muscle was unable to be accounted for)

[pearl briar]

28-32 km/h that's just crazy for a rex speed

[bright veldt]

People can think different things and it’s also late so I’m kinda all over the place

[tough parcel]

Eh, their child evolutionary form hit so much higher

[sullen cairn]

like things more basal than it or their literal children cause both are true

[woeful falcon]

Oh yeah sure but I'm more flabbergasted that there was wacky zany numbers being thrown around when random's was within reading distance haha

[tough parcel]

Both (I meant literal children, but both works)

[pearl briar]

imma just sticking to 16-17 mph (25-27 km/h) for rex speed

[light osprey]

18 cause people like big numbers

[woeful falcon]

True

Its the largest fastest large dinosaur you know what bump that up to 20

[pearl briar]

i'm just gonna speak this once again
inhale
NERF REX, BUFF SPINO

[elfin pulsar]

Wut

[sullen cairn]

looking at larramendi's chart alectrosaurus might be the fastest adult tyrannosauroid

[pearl briar]

rex is too op i want him to be nerfed
spino is too weak i want him to be buffed

[elfin pulsar]

Too bad you get a weird heron duck lizard thing that we don’t even know exactly what it did

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/breaking-bad-walter-white-gif-20348263

poor spoon

[light osprey]

Wrong chat my presumptuous peer

[pearl briar]

what
i mean nerf rex irl, buff spino irl too

[light osprey]

Ohhh. Nah they are at a good place balancing wise

[woeful falcon]

They'd have to be for the whole ecosystem thing to work haha

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/fair-enough-shea-brennan-sam-elliott-1883-thats-reasonable-gif-24225989

[nocturne gazelle]

are we still in the "it's legs can't support it so it must be a swimmer" and "but it would be a terrible swimmer so it must be terrestrial" phase?

[elfin pulsar]

No idea

[light osprey]

We’re in the “I give up” phase. Rational people are at least

[ancient crystal]

Spinosaurus was clearly a cosmic entity capable of some higher form of locomotion

[jagged trellis]

that only leaves one option then: the air

[pearl briar]

Spinosaurus is a small whale

[nocturne gazelle]

blimp spino real?!

[honest wave]

I have finally fully mapped my theropoda cladogram! I have a low-res jpg here as a preview, but also a full-res svg. I haven't gone into full detail in the passeriformes since they are an absolutely massive group, but everything else should be fully laid out to its most reasonably detailed extent. The svg does require a separate download to view and may take a sec to load, so I gave the jpg as proof it's not just a sketchy download link lol.

[frigid coral]

This is insane Woah

[stiff osprey]

I'm impressed that you managed to make birds only take up half the image lol

[honest wave]

Like I said, the passeriformes are huge enough I left them out. If I didn't, the birds would be wayyyyy bigger

[frigid coral]

millions of years of evolution and kookaburras are the pinnacle of it all

[honest wave]

More that it's woodpeckers, but kookaburras are damn close lmao. The kingfishers really are king.

[stiff osprey]

It's okay they are the worst bird order anyway

[sullen cairn]

the 400 species of tyrannida

[pearl briar]

WHAT IS BRO COOKING 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯

[honest wave]

(Mucho texto incoming)
I did my best to reference the most up-to-date and reasonably supported papers for each placement. I also ran this by a few folks in the other communities I'm in.

Greyed-out boxes represent clades that have especially shaky placement, and I did my best to show their most commonly referenced alternative relations. They still have associated pictures, but they do not universally refer to the most accurate placement, just where the images fit best in the spacing of the cladogram.

Modern birds (aves) are marked with a red dotted line. I decided to include many of the extinct groups of aves since I feel like they often get looked over as groups of modern birds and their relationships with them are fascinating to think about. I do not currently have anything marking which lineages are extinct or extant, but hopefully it should be decently clear.

If there you have any recommendations or see any issues, please be sure to ping or dm me!

I made this with the intention of it being a useful reference for myself and others when having discussions, as well as a future study tool. Also I am just f#cking insane. Not a single bit of art in it is mine, but I tried to find the most accurate representations of the animals they are depicting. If you want to use this, feel free! No credit to me is needed as much of the legwork for the project was done by people other than myself. I wish I could give them proper credit, but it would literally be in the hundreds of names.

[sullen cairn]

besides megaraptorans (you should still add megaraptoridae for reduandancy) what was the biggest pain in the ass

[honest wave]

The relations of and between megaraptorans and neovenatoridae were especially terrible, but there were plenty more issues than just those. For overall difficulties I would say that simply determing which clades to include out of the hundreds of years of dinosaur research. I had to sift through a lot of papers and articles to figure out which were valid enough to add. And as far as stuff that was just more difficult than it should have been? Finding a good image for vultures

[sullen cairn]

is there a lack of decent vulture clipart

[honest wave]

I also have made 'grams for ornithischia and the rest of saurischia, but I am still refining them so I will post the finished products for them later

[sullen cairn]

no more birds at least

[honest wave]

... I might do the passeriformes ||just to piss Random off||

[stiff osprey]

my favorite dinosaur divisions: ornithischia (~300 species), non-theropodan saurischia (~300 species), non-passeriform theropoda (~5000 species) and passeriformes (~5000 species)

[sullen cairn]

uh huh

[honest wave]

Prepare for the 100 GB .svg file of a completely separate cladogram for passeriformes alone, which I will have completed in exactly three years to the day.

[pearl briar]

possibilites for my storage bcomes full 100% 📈📈📈

[honest wave]

My end goal for this is actually to brick the computers of everyone who downloads the 'grams. They may be completely secure files, but that's where the evil actually lies.

[pearl briar]

ehh
but anyway i love it
thx for making the full & complete theropod charts, they're trully are my favourite dino clade of all time

[honest wave]

Thanks, and no problem! I've loved every second of this project, even when it was driving me nuts. I learned a lot from working on it and I hope that others can too!

Btw I may do a color-organized version of it, similar to my first iteration of the project (partially attached). If anyone would like a version in this format, let me know.

[sullen cairn]

is there any pattern to the coloring

[honest wave]

Just helping to differentiate the clades further, since it is a little bit of a visual salad with how much is on there. I may do more grounded patterning though, such as colors marking when groups first appear in the fossil record. It depends on what sort of feedback or requests I get, really. The version I have attached has a lot of issues for sure, but it is at least sort of an example.

[sullen cairn]

If you were to do coloring I think it would look best if one could make the major monophyletic clades one color with that color getting progressively darker/lighter the more derived you get within that clade

but even then you'd run out of colors pretty quickly doing that

[honest wave]

That's pretty close to what I was actually planning to do. Running out of colors is certainly an issue, but if I plan it correctly I may be able to reuse colors without it being too confusing.

I am of course doing this in Google Drawings, as any true professional would do, so I am a bit limited in the base colors unless I really go nuts on the hex wheel.

[sullen cairn]

also minor potential issue but it'd probably make more sense to have pantyrannosauria than eutyrannosauria because pantyrannosauria is explicitly defined to the exclusion of proceratosauridae (when dilong's not being weird)

[honest wave]

Oh true one sec

[pearl briar]

i'm going to say this again

[honest wave]

Done (actually don't use this nvm)

[sullen cairn]

although with that said pantyrannosauria gets weird when dilong's recovered as a proceratosaurid

[honest wave]

You love my suffering, don't you?

[bright veldt]

Yutyrannus also varies. Sometimes it’s a proceratosaur, sometimes it’s a more derived pantyrannosaur like dilong.

[sullen cairn]

it's not my fault delcourt and grillo made pantyrannosauria rex and dilong <-- proceratosaurus instead of just rex <-- proceratosaurus

[stiff osprey]

never thought Dilong would be part of a definition that excludes proceratosaurs, i thought it was just a basal mans that hadn't developed the crest yet

[honest wave]

I'm trying to go back and find out where dilong was placed in the material I used 💀

[sullen cairn]

whyyyyyy

[stiff osprey]

so if Dilong is a proceratosaur, pantyrannosauria ceases exist

paradoxus indeed

[honest wave]

Yeah going back to the references I used I'm pretty sure I have dilong included as a proceratosaur. I guess I didn't just miss a labeling.

[sullen cairn]

imma call it an ouroboros clade for no reason other than it sounds sick

[honest wave]

Given that I have my 'gram laid out in a way that pantyrannosauria and eutyrannosauria can almost be interchangeable, I don't know if it's worth modifying too much right now. I could be completely out of my gourd though. It's past midnight and I've been doing this for hours, so I may be misinterpreting things badly.

[sullen cairn]

Whenever you have clades that are x + y rather than x <— y there’s always a high risk of inadvertently discluding immediately more basal genera, so it’s fair to bite the bullet and use eutyrannosauria when the alternative’s legitimate existence is somewhat volatile

Just a side affect of not being able to include specific genera in the cladogram

[honest wave]

Yeah I think that's the conclusion I originally went with anyways, so you're probably right. Best not to overthink I guess.

[sullen cairn]

Plus all we’re missing out on is xiongguanlong and the 1000 things referred to alectrosaurus and co.

[honest wave]

What do you think of something similar to this?

[sullen cairn]

yeah that's great

[honest wave]

Awesome, thanks. I'll see how it applies to the rest of it.

There's a bit of weirdness, but I feel like I could make this work.

[sullen cairn]

Looks nice

[pearl briar]

i just love the purple red orange yellow green & blue patterns 🏳️‍🌈

[honest wave]

Alright, here's the updated full-res .svg and the .jpg preview

There's a bit of weirdness in avialae, but it was hard to make things work around aves.

I also made the aves line black instead of red so as to be less visually confusing.

[pearl briar]

https://tenor.com/view/hell-yeah-low-quality-dancing-gif-25236268

[raw glen]

Hay guys please tell what this is

[white matrix]

empty eastern illinois river turtle hatchling shell i cleaned/preserved a few months ago{Posted for Educational purposes

[tranquil quartz]

Megaloceros?
Unsure as I can’t make out the full scale of the antlers

[compact leaf]

the angle on the antlers isn’t the best for figuring it out but it looks like a stag moose (Cervalces scotti) to me

[tranquil quartz]

Yeah that would make sense, the Stag Moose antlers match better

[tranquil quartz]

What is the largest known Mesosaur? (not Mosasaur typo btw)

[bright veldt]

Seems to be mesosaurus itself at a meter long

[eternal cairn]

For the peeps saying tylos not a mosasaurhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tylosaurus

[astral kelp]

who said tylo isn't a mosasaur I've never heard such claim

[eternal cairn]

a few people in the mod chat. Making like it isnt

[covert lintel]

i didn't see anyone claiming that, though... closest i saw was someone saying tylo isn't a mod.

[eternal cairn]

Not directly no. But a few imply it

[astral kelp]

???

[bold trout]

I know tylo is a mosa but it can kill a mosa

Irl atleast

[covert lintel]

tylosaurus is a mosasaur, but it isn't mosasaurus, and i think "mosa" was meant to mean mosasaurus proper in that discussion

[eternal cairn]

imply means saying it without actualy saying it. Was not refering to you liam

[bold trout]

I'm aware

[covert lintel]

can you be specific about who was implying it and why you think they were, at least? it's hard to figure out what's going on + potentially clarify when you're being vague abt it

[bright veldt]

There’s not a major size difference between the two, but if anything it’d be mosa since it’s the larger one.

[eternal cairn]

xbox keyboard like to mess up my typing sry

[astral kelp]

Dont think this is the place for animal vs animal discussions

[bold trout]

Some dude said conca solos mosa I cringed so hard

[stiff osprey]

It's true, a beached mosasaur is practically defenseless

[eternal cairn]

most mosas would kill others if they could

[bold trout]

They said non. Beached [I think he is an aquatic conca main]

[astral kelp]

https://tenor.com/view/guh-gif-25116077

[bold trout]

They may be missing a bolt or 2 becuz conca isn't agile in the water it can swim yeah but most is fully aquatic

[covert lintel]

more importantly, Concavenator Is Small

[tranquil quartz]

Isnt Tylo larger on average but Mosa is larger when it comes to largest sizes

[bright veldt]

Never heard of this. Mosa’s overall the more massive animal (even though tylo can exceed mosa in length).

[heady thunder]

Should be the opposite iirc

[tranquil quartz]

Dk where I heard that then, just remember someone in here telling me it

[stiff osprey]

There are Tylo specimens that allegedly outweigh Mosa due to the sheer length difference between them. But these are scraps and I've already downsized one of them

[covert lintel]

tragic ! oh well. theres other giant sea lizards

[heady thunder]

Why conc of all things?

[astral kelp]

Because someone was talking about how a friend told them conca solos mosa

[heady thunder]

[covert lintel]

huh. conca is slightly less small than i remember it being. still not a good size for fighting a giant sea lizard tho, it'd be better off just... staying away from coasts

[white matrix]

Lmfao im crying 😭💀

[honest wave]

Conca likely wasn't even semi-aquatic in real life lmao

[covert lintel]

yeah, it probably wasn't a bad swimmer but afaik there's not any evidence to suggest it was properly semi-aquatic IRL. the way it is in PoT is just AG taking creative liberties

[thin forum]

Does anyone here like the titanaboa

[pearl briar]

ahh yes my favorite snake of all time
Titanaboa (typo moment)

[wary heath]

Which carnivorous dinosaur would've been an equal match to deinocheirus in terms of combat?

[stiff osprey]

Tarbosaurus, maybe

[tranquil quartz]

I think it would have actually made more sense to give Cera dive as there was a theory it was an aquatic hunter, later disproven but atleast it had something, Conc dive is just weird imo

[elfin pulsar]

Well you see conca has a fin and that means shark and that means swimming

[ancient crystal]

I mean, I can see where they were coming from at least.

A dinosaur with a hump that vaguely resembles a shark fin, that belongs to a family of dinosaurs with a name meaning "shark toothed lizards"

[compact leaf]

more than anything they were probably inspired by conc living in a swampy delta-ish environment, lots of water around but that doesn’t mean it was semi aquatic

[woeful falcon]

No it was the fin

[ancient crystal]

Been a while since I played conc but the speed sub's hump is pretty much the exact shape of a shark fin right?

[elfin pulsar]

No, but it’s definitely more shark fin-esque

[light osprey]

(Edit) read your message wrong, ignore whatever I said before

[cold cedar]

What is this? Seems like some sort of code

[pearl briar]

how accurate is max bellomio's giga model?
https://twitter.com/digital_duck/status/1330605496169099265?s=19

Digital Duck (Max Bellomio) (@digital_duck)

Giganotosaurus final renders for #mesozoiclifeproject

Likes

907

Retweets

148

Twitter · Nov 22, 2020, 8:14 PM

[woeful falcon]

Its a pre-meraxes giga so, good for its time. Currently tho idk

[dreamy sleet]

i mean the gigas legs are skinny i think and it seems the bodys mass is more to the front

[honest wave]

It's a download for my exhaustive theropoda cladogram. There is a button on the bottom for the svg file to download and open in browser. I had to send it as this because the image is too large for a regular png or jpg. I wouldn't recommend using the one in that message though. Use the one attached to this message instead. The data is more accurate. I don't know why there's so much code stuff attached.

Here's a preview low-res jpg as proof I'm not slinging sketchy files around.

[astral kelp]

How many hours did this take you lol

[honest wave]

No idea but it was a lot. I'm struggling to come up with a good estimate lol.

[dreamy sleet]

nive try but you forgot to add the latin birds my man like gorion,carpintero,golondrina,agiula and palomo

[honest wave]

Some of those are included under their formal scientific names, and some of those are in passeriformes, assuming I understand what you're saying

[dreamy sleet]

oh ok then my bad then you are the boss the masster and the dude my bro 🙂

[honest wave]

I'm definitely not an expert. If there is something you feel I missed, I do encourage constructive criticism. I'm not sure if I totally understand what you referred to in your message, but you meant sparrows, woodpeckers, swallows, eagles, and pigeons, correct?

[dreamy sleet]

yes but ithink you already covered that up

[honest wave]

If that's what you meant, then yes. Gorriones and golondrinas are in passeriformes, carpinteros are in piciformes, aguilas are in accipitriformes, and palomos are in columbiformes.

[woeful falcon]

You could prolly make two separate theropoda ones like
Theropoda and Theropoda (Aves) to save on space and expand on other theropod groups so its not just a coelurosaur avalanche with birds at the helm

Abelisaurids for example are a group that can be expanded further

[bold trout]

What I got from that was gosnfifnriekwoekrbdiengidkejgierj and something bird

[sullen cairn]

tbf furileusauria and carnotaurini would be somewhat redundant without any sister clades and abelisaurus probably isn't stable enough for carnotaurinae/abelisaurinae to be confidently placed anywhere

like they probably both exist as distinct monophyletic clades but it can be kinda iffy

[bold trout]

https://tenor.com/view/no-brain-loading-slow-gif-16361840

[honest wave]

They were using the spanish names for the birds and I was explaining which clades they belonged to. If you have trouble understanding something, I would recommend trying to learn about it instead of rudely comparing another language to gibberish.

[honest wave]

I designed this with the intent of emphasizing the birds and their dinosaurian ancestry, so that is why I let them take up so much space. I will probably post the separated version as well though, and I'll see about expanding the abelisaurids. As Table mentioned, there's not a lot of stable ground within the clade or distinct enough sister taxa, but I'll see what I can do.

[pearl briar]

who is this theropod 😭

[lavish frigate]

That is otodus megalodon

[west coral]

megalodon hungaricum

[white matrix]

A quail that stole legs from an ibis

[woeful falcon]

I'm not saying you have to expand on abelisaurids I was just threw it in as an example just because when you look at it it's like, "man there's a lot more going on here than you'd think"

Also I can't read it bc I can't actually open the file but does it include Carcharosontosaurinae and Giganotosaurini

[sudden wind]

Omg, complete neotheropoda phylogeny

Do you have a picture with a better resolution ?

[tranquil quartz]

Guys this paper
I have no words 💀
https://www.rareresource.com/anodontosaurus-dinosaurs.html

[ancient crystal]

[sudden wind]

https://twitter.com/TomHoltzPaleo/status/1150736809485361153

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. 🦖💕 (he/him) (@TomHoltzPaleo)

The as-yet unnamed didactyl therizinosaur

Likes

182

Twitter · Jul 15, 2019, 12:00 PM

[covert lintel]

juvenile moorhen (or perhaps a coot? it's in the moorhen-coot zone) with photoshopped feet

the feet are still pretty big IRL tho, they're goofy birds

[bold trout]

Sorry

[zinc spindle]

Just showed my dad the concavenator and he said “that guy needs a chiropractor”

[light osprey]

Realest thing I’ve ever read

[tranquil quartz]

“Anodontosaurus is an important genus in the study of sauropods, as it is one of the oldest known members of the group and may represent an ancestral form. It provides insight into the evolution of sauropods from the earlier, smaller sauropodomorphs. Anodontosaurus is also important in the study of Late Triassic ecosystems, as its fossils are found in formations that also contain other dinosaur species, such as Coelophysis, as well as a variety of other plant and animal species.” - realest thing ive ever read

[light osprey]

Anodontosaurus is my favourite basal sauropodomorph

[honest wave]

Use the attached svg file, it will open up the image in full resolution. The image is unfortunately too large to be shared as a high-res jpg or png.

[lime elm]

Looking for people who like pterosaurs because they’re my current hyper fixation but I don’t know enough about them, I want to be full nerd 🙏🙏

[astral kelp]

If you really want to delve into pterosaurs there is this good book by mark witton, lil pricey but good. Has a lot of good information

[stiff osprey]

that was the only book I've ever actually borrowed from my university library.
worth it too

[light osprey]

Is that Nyctosaurus or another rendition of Barbaridactylus

[bright veldt]

Nycto. Barbari looking exactly like nycta’s a PhP thing

[honest wave]

him feets too big 💀 (looks like a moorhen chick maybe)

[light osprey]

Well we don’t have any material of its crest. It’s been lumped before so they probably looked pretty similar

[nocturne gazelle]

Those things look like they would snap like a twig...
And they look like a mast without the sail...

[covert lintel]

welcome to the wonderful world of Why Does It Look Like That

[lavish frigate]

Don’t worry the answer to all your “why does it look like that” questions is here!……

Display. It’s. Always. Just. Display.

[lime elm]

Thank you! I did a research about books about them, this and The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaur

I plan to buy them

[nocturne gazelle]

Display or thermoregulation 99% of the time

[tranquil quartz]

What about some goofy little evolution screwup?

[stiff osprey]

that's the other 1%

[covert lintel]

yeah that's where cotylorhynchus and brachytrachelopan come in

[tranquil quartz]

really curious to know what caused evolution to produce brachytrachelopan

[compact leaf]

it’s hard to say considering how little we know about it’s formation but there’s a trend of diplodocoids becoming low browsers in the cretacous in other places too

[dense ibex]

I am here for the sin of the supposed "Semi-Aquatic Ceratosaurus"

[frigid copper]

I’m not saying it should be a true semi aquatic, at all. I’m saying it should be more proficient at swimming than it is in the game, and be able to BRIEFLY make shallow dives for fish.

[hoary jay]

Didn’t you say you were gonna post links?

[frigid copper]

No, I was asked to. But you have google too.

[hoary jay]

You directed them to paleo, insinuating you’ll give proof here, we shouldn’t have to google it ourselves. All you have to do Is send the link.

Oh my bad bulb did that

[woeful falcon]

I directed this to paleo, bc its paleo discussion lol

[astral kelp]

When we talk about Ceratosaurus, its tail is quite flexible, and it has these unusually long haemal arches and neural arches that seem perfect for attaching muscles. But this doesn't mean those muscles helped it swim. If we look at the tail of a crocodile, you'll notice that its tail bones stick out a lot, making the base of the tail wide and square. However, like Cerato, the base of the tail is more oval in shape. This means that while Cerato could swim somewhat decently, its body wasn't built for swimming like a crocodile or alligator. It couldn't swim as well as them.

[frigid copper]

I didn’t direct anyone here. Someone else did.

[hoary jay]

My bad I realized

[ruby swallow]

I just want to see these supposed studies you've read.

[compact leaf]

semi aquatic ceratosaurus got debunked a long time ago, one of the biggest things against it is the fact that ceratosaurus often lived in pretty dry environments

[covert lintel]

google is really Not That Good at finding specific studies unless you have the DOI number or somethin. if you don't already know what you're looking for, all you're getting are news sites, AI-generated trash, and maybe some fandom wikis.
"you have google too" isn't really a great excuse to not source your claims

[light osprey]

Why though

[hoary jay]

So it seems it’s not semi aquatic, one they don’t wanna give a source, two someone else is saying that’s been debunked, and three, there saying google it, which is normally what people who have no proof say

[white matrix]

Yuty was a fully aquatic herbivore

[bright veldt]

I got a good synopsis of large predator ecology that I’ll share here, based on various studies on the topic. If you want the TLDR though, torvosaurus preferred forest edges where it could ambush large prey, contrary to popular belief Ceratosaurus preferred open prairie and dry scrubland, while allo really did not care and was basically everywhere in the Morrison basin.

[scarlet moon]

Interesting

[bright veldt]

Torvosaurus is the biggest and most heavily built predator in the formation and has the biggest teeth of any terrestrial carnivore in the Jurassic. Many of its adaptations (short but strong forelimbs, heavily hooked claws, robust skull, thick teeth, etc.) show a preference for large game hunting, and fossils tend to be found close to fringe habitats near the edges of forests and water bodies. The latter is typical of many large carnivores as it provides enough cover for an ambush right next to clear views for the subsequent chase. It's most common in the Dryosaurus faunal zone alongside stegosaurs and camarasaurs.

Allosaurus is the second biggest predator in the formation but has the smallest teeth and simplest jaws, along with the longest arms of the three taxa (and among the longest arms of any non-maniraptoran theropod) equipped with a big thumb claw. Allosaurus is the most common theropod in terms of specimens in the Morrison and shows no strong preference for any habitat type. Its simple jaws and long arms would be very useful in grasping and overpowering smaller animals than itself like ornithischians and juvenile dinosaurs. That doesn't mean it didn't tackle larger prey (indeed we have direct evidence of it doing so), but most of its traits suggest it probably focused on smaller animals it could overpower.

Ceratosaurus is the smallest and weirdest of the Morrison trio, but specimens are known that still reach bigger Allosaurus sizes. (The idea that it's 6 meters long is mainly based on juvenile individuals.) It's also one of only two known theropods with osteoderms, a nasal horn that forms a bladed tip, and the longest teeth for its body size of any Jurassic theropod, which makes it really unique. It's the only Morrison theropod that shows a strong preference for open fern prairies far away from forests, and is found almost exclusively in the Mymoorapelta fauna zone that's dominated by ankylosaurs and apatosaurine sauropods.

[sullen cairn]

from yun 2019

[hoary jay]

Do you have the full link?

[sullen cairn]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334560612_Comments_on_the_ecology_of_Jurassic_theropod_dinosaur_Ceratosaurus_Dinosauria_Theropoda_with_critical_reevaluation_for_supposed_semiaquatic_lifestyle

[bright veldt]

There’s also a bonus with Saurophagonax if ur wondering what’s going on with it —-Expanding on what the people above said, Saurophaganax is only found in the uppermost part of the Morrison in a layer where Allosaurus and Torvosaurus are not found (although the Edmarka specimen might be from the same layers). It's not part of the "main cast" of Jurassic animals and appears after most of the productive sites that we know the most about. It's the sister taxon to Allosaurus and could be a direct descendant given it's from later in time, but differs in almost every bone of the skeleton, is much more robust, and shows larger dentition. Saurophaganax is only known from one site, but that site has abundant water and many giant sauropods, including the largest known Apatosaurus specimen. It's probably filling the niche of a big game hunter like Torvosaurus after the latter (possibly) disappeared.

[hoary jay]

So I know this strays from the current topic, but I’m wondering what allos were like, I runa. Realism server and I want Allo to be accurate, it’s also like one of my favorites

Also if anyone knows about what Spino was like

[viscid surge]

Paleo talks never fails to be the most chaotic and entertaining channel in my eyes. Ty guys for entertaining me with your questionable arguments 24/8

[bright veldt]

TLDR allosaurus is too hardy to die. They’re used to living anywhere and really preying upon anything they can given they opportunity. They probably didn’t regularly prey on larger animals to avoid competition with the much larger torvo, but they still did when given the chance.

[hoary jay]

You got non tldr? Also they were pack hunters right?

[frigid copper]

There’s many more out there too. Thank you for taking 5 seconds to google it lol

[sullen cairn]

I wouldn't say Ceratosaurus could reach the size of larger allosaurus considering the largest possible ceratosaurus wasn't even 2t nor from the morrison

[light osprey]

When they are contemporary, Allosaurus gets bigger

[woeful falcon]

the paper linked is a counterpoint to cerato being semi aquatic

[bright veldt]

Whether or not allosaurs were social is up in the air. There’s little direct evidence compared to say tyrannosaurs for example, but such fossil finds might still be hinting to it. The bones of them found together are predator traps, but they’re still the most common predators found there which, combined with wounds on the skulls from fellow allosaurs, might hint to frequent encounters and some layer of sociality. It’s r really inconclusive though. It’s up to you really in that regard.

[bright veldt]

The size of allosaurus is very weird and highly variable. We have Ceratosaurus specimens that get to similar sizes or larger than the smallest adults. It’s odd. The largest definite allosaurus specimen (a 9m long individual) was immature, while some fully mature adults are way smaller.

[frigid copper]

For the 3rd time, I’m not suggesting it is semi aquatic… I am suggesting it should swim faster and be able to briefly dive. As even the article linked suggest. Even tho it challenged that it was truly semi aquatic, it does still say that it was likely be proficient at hunting aquatic animals. Which, now for the 4th time, I will say, that was my entire point.

[hoary jay]

Fair enough thank you for the help, do you know anything about Spino?

[light osprey]

It’s a dinosaur 👍

[bright veldt]

Spinosaurus in general is extremely controversial in fossil and potential lifestyle. I honestly can’t give you anything conclusive outside of it primarily feeding on fish and living around water bodies.

[viscid surge]

Yeah, talking about will set this channel on fire at peak times 💀

[hoary jay]

Fair enough, it’s changed so much, I love the current tail of Spinosaurus

[bright veldt]

I honestly prefer Suchomimus because it’s changed a lot but in a way we actually understand. In its ecosystem it was basically the spino from JP3 but real.

[sullen cairn]

Ft. giant crocodylomorph of course

[light osprey]

What exactly does Spinosaurus do in Jurassic Park 3

[sullen cairn]

Consume a phone

[bright veldt]

Even then. Suchomimus was so massive compared to most other animals. It was over 50% larger than Sarcosuchus. They likely avoided each other if anything. Sarcosuchus preferred to hunt dinosaurs that wandered to the water’s edge. Suchomimus preferred fish, but is opportunistic and likely to would’ve ate anything it could. On land it was unrivaled in sheer size except for maybe lurdusaurus.

[hoary jay]

And kill rexy

[woeful falcon]

Okay but this conversation has nothing to do with the game anymore, that's why we moved to paleo chat. Your words were "Cera was believed to be semi-aquatic" and " there’s lots of info out there and MANY paleontologists believe is was a good aquatic hunter"

and then here when people asked for links to these statements you told people to google it. You thanked the one link someone got (wasn't even a response to you) that rejected the hypothesis.

[light osprey]

Right I get now Suchomimus ate Tyrannosaurus and phones

[tranquil quartz]

Isnt Sauro bigger than Torvo?

[woeful falcon]

Though, if you do want to make suggestions for cerato in the game you can go here #suggestions

gotta whole site dedicated to it

[frigid copper]

And what part of “Cera was believed to be semi-aquatic” is untrue? There are papers written for it, and challenges to those papers. But I suppose you’re the one who gets to decide which theory was truth. 🤣

[covert lintel]

i would like to re-emphasize this

[hoary jay]

It’s really not hard to just give links, it’s much harder for us to find out what exactly your looking at

[bright veldt]

Yes but not by much. The two species did not coexist. Torvosaurus likely became extinct when the Morrison became dryer and more arid. Megalosaurs like torvo preferred wetlands and tropical habitats (which is why they’re easily the most common and dominant carnivore guild in Europe during the Jurassic, when the continent was a large archipelago), so torvo disappeared when the place got dryer. This likely allowed allo to get larger and monopolize on larger prey (enter saurophagonax).

[tranquil quartz]

Because Paleontologists have debunked it, qualified professionals who know more than google

[woeful falcon]

Dinosaurs were also wildly believed to be slow lumbering behemoths but I'm not making suggestions on debunked, refuted or countered paleo info so I don't really understand the point of that comment

[hoary jay]

This was also thought to be an accurate version of Megalosaurs and iguanadon

[light osprey]

Newer papers probably have more/better information which is why they may see it as reputable

[woeful falcon]

I think it could be cool for cerato to maybe have a paddle tail ability as a nod to that but I digress

[bright veldt]

The whole thing on cerato being semi-aquatic was more or less based on a hunch by Bakker. Who noticed cerato and torvo teeth being more common around ancient water bodies. You can understand how it’s a large leap to go from “cerato teeth are found in water” to “it was a semi-aquatic animal” especially when, yknow, everything needs to drink water and fossilization is better in such places to begin with.

[sullen cairn]

You guys don’t seem to understand that Ceratosaurus is semiaquatic because how else did it swim to four continents

[bright veldt]

Lol

[hoary jay]

The way everything else did, it waddled

[tranquil quartz]

Probably just teleported there

[light osprey]

Allosaurus aquatic 🗿

[covert lintel]

it got picked up by hurricanes 🤓

[sullen cairn]

But Ceratosaurus is from more continents making it more semi-aquatic because it had to swim more

[hoary jay]

Cerato tornado

[flat pond]

Meanwhile, Denversaurus is just chilling in a forest.

[astral kelp]

living spiked coffee table

[hoary jay]

Boulder

[sullen cairn]

Colorado Springs

[light osprey]

🥱 imagine trying to explain cosmopolitan taxon

[covert lintel]

erm . actually its taxa if theres more than one 🤓

[flat pond]

Also the one thing I don’t get is why many dinosaur games forget or sleep on nodosaurs. Sure they may look like ankylosaurs without clubs but they at least had shoulder spikes and somewhat bladed tails.

[sullen cairn]

Jurassic world evolution has an excess of them

[flat pond]

That is true.

[tranquil quartz]

Because if a nodosaur was added to pot the game would suffer from being to cool

[bright veldt]

It also forces them to confront the fact that ankylosauria as a whole isn’t stupidly OP like typically portrayed.

[light osprey]

Krill issue

[sullen cairn]

And the can’t just make it an ankylosaurus

Unlike something else in the game

[flat pond]

True, they aren’t really OP. Also I’d love to see more ankylosaurs than Ankylosaurus itself. Like why not Tarchia?

[hoary jay]

They think: anky is tanky

[light osprey]

Heretical statement. They are impenetrable gods, above every other animal to ever exist. You’re just a hater

[sullen cairn]

Obviously ankylosaurs can instantly break bones and have impenetrable armor making them immune to predation

[flat pond]

They do be living tanks.

[bright veldt]

That one tarbosaurus specimen that preyed on ankylosaurs almost exclusively-

[light osprey]

We just ignore that one. Pretend it never happened

[sullen cairn]

I like that there’s a whole trifecta of Mongolian ankylosaurs who’s names have one word meanings

[flat pond]

The mighty Tarchia would like to have a word with you.

[light osprey]

Oh that’s the Ankylosaur with a pathology displaying predation. We don’t talk about that one

[hoary jay]

Let’s talk about it

[sullen cairn]

Scavenging incident

[light osprey]

Oh is that what the paper actually concluded

[sullen cairn]

Yea, I am not making things up in the slightest

[hoary jay]

Really?

[light osprey]

Real. (But not really)

[dense ibex]

Didnt a Tarchia Died to a Head trauma because of a Tarbosaurus bite

[sullen cairn]

https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.25205

[hoary jay]

Elaborate

[little mauve]

It survived the bite but may have died due to infection or the trauma later

[light osprey]

The Tarchia was most definitely was being predated on by a Tarbosaurus.

[flat pond]

I think there was one that was killed by the club of another Tarchia

[hoary jay]

Damn they really do be tanky

[dense ibex]

Yes

[flat pond]

Wrong chat for that and they can’t due to copyright

[little mauve]

Far from invulnerable though

[light osprey]

Last week

[hoary jay]

Tanks aren’t invulnerable, so it still counts, nothing is invulnerable

[little mauve]

Ha, good point. I guess that makes big tyrannosaurs Mesozoic anti tank guns

[hoary jay]

Lol yeas

[tranquil quartz]

Flesh Eating Bacteria still would probably solo

[hoary jay]

Quite a few parasites and bacteria prob could solo them

You know. I’ve always wanted to think dragons could exist to be as big as they could their bones would have been very light and hollow, making it nearly impossible to fossilize. And that makes me happy to think that, but I know quetz someone fossilized, and now I’m wondering do pteranodons have hollow bones?

[little mauve]

Basically what you described with hypothetical dragons is the case with pterosaurs. Extremely light and hollow bones, difficult to fossilize. We're definitely missing a lot of their diversity

[hoary jay]

So I essence i could be right?

[light osprey]

The essential concept of what it represents is a Pterosaur.

[elfin pulsar]

No

And yes ofc pterosaurs have hollow bones

[little mauve]

Pterosaurs & dinosaurs are the closest thing to dragons you're ever gonna get

[hoary jay]

Yea I know, would be cool if we could make small ones

[light osprey]

Some pterosaurs are even pretty toothy so there’s a bonus I guess

[little mauve]

Yi qi has the "dragon" wings

[hoary jay]

Really?

[elfin pulsar]

Yea, well, sorta

[little mauve]

Yep, check it out might be your new favorite dino

[light osprey]

Seems like a fine enough Scansoriopterygid. Here’s your dragon-dinosaur

[hoary jay]

So a dinosaur bat?

[elfin pulsar]

It’s the closest thing youll get to a sorta dragon

[hoary jay]

Omg it’s a webby flying penguin

[light osprey]

Oh perfect time to ask, I may have inquired this before but I have the memory of a bee. Anyone know when contour feathers appear in Coelurosauria?

[hoary jay]

Your right, it’s amazing, to bad it’s fricking microscopic

[elfin pulsar]

Itll nip at your ankles

[hoary jay]

Sounds amazing, would def let it

[little mauve]

Pennaraptora I believe

[light osprey]

The whole dang clade? Sheesh

[little mauve]

My understanding is that they are equivalent to pennaceous feathers so its earliest occurrence would similarly correlate

[frail robin]

Pterosaurs did have hollow bones. Up to 90% hollow, in fact, yet we still have fossils of them. I'm sorry to tell you, but if dragons existed, we would have known

[hoary jay]

Sadge

[nocturne gazelle]

So continuing from the discussion in #path-of-titans, what makes us believe that hadrosaurs and iguanodontids(?) wouldn't run biped? I get some iguanodontids but a lot of the hadrosaurs have such flimsy looking legs it looks like they would be off balance while quad and wouldn't move as fast?

[sullen cairn]

Aren't most hadrosaurs facultative bipeds

[bright veldt]

I think it has to do with the structure of their front feet. IE they spent most of their time walking on them rather than for purposes that facilitate other uses like grasping or clawing (even though they still could’ve used them for these things and they did to a limited extent)

[nocturne gazelle]

Just looks like they would be slowing themselves down attempting to run quadroped

[bright veldt]

Quadroped is a faster method of locomotion funnily enough

The typical trade off you see is quadropedalism being faster while bipedalism is more versatile

[nocturne gazelle]

Even when haunched forward?

Like iggy is one that I could see. But stuff like Maia and para seems... off balance.

[little mauve]

Dinosaurs were almost all "rear driven" anyway, with the locomotor power coming from the hindlimbs and tail whether on two legs or four. Four just lends stability, they wouldn't lose any power

[sullen cairn]

Wouldn't their stride length be limited by their shorter front limbs when quadraped

[little mauve]

Maybe? I'm not sure, I don't think necessarily or enough to make much of an impact

[stiff osprey]

Yes, hadrosaurs running quadrupedally would massively reduce their speed. Iguanodon maybe less so, though

[elfin pulsar]

Wait so lambeos old setup of trotting biped and runnin quad makes more sense?

[stiff osprey]

Key biomechanics, the forelimbs are up to a third shorter than the hindlimbs, and no quadrupedal animal moves both sets of limbs at different rates. So a quadrupedal hadrosaur is up to 33% slower than a bipedal one, except for the hatchlings and young juveniles, which could gallop

[sullen cairn]

Which is why you calculate quadruped speed using the dimensions of their shortest limbs

[nocturne gazelle]

Idk if this is a good skeletal or not but lamb running on quad would just look goofy

Iggy looks more plausible but even then it looks fairly well balanced on its hind limb placement.

[little mauve]

Are there more recent papers on it than Sellers et. al. 2009? Their quadruped model was only 2 m/s slower than their bipedal one

[woeful falcon]

Iggy's goliath arms

[elfin pulsar]

Oh wait I misread it completely thought you guys were saying quad running was faster and I was super confused

[sullen cairn]

There’s larramendi’s equations

[stiff osprey]

If that is the paper I'm thinking of, the quadrupedal gait is a gallop, which only hadrosaurs under a couple tons could achieve

[nocturne gazelle]

Seems to be a bit of both. Some saying quad is faster or at least just as equal, others are skeptical.

[little mauve]

Gotcha, that's right & probably the source of my confusion

[cold cedar]

Ah got you thank you

[cold cedar]

I'm curious what are the sources for these

[bright veldt]

This is one https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Assemblage-level-structure-in-Morrison-Formation-Whitlock-Trujillo/057618478f10e2889cef373a3bf105b09c84f9b0?sort=is-influential

[cold cedar]

I'm curious on how someone came to the conclusion that Torvosaurus was a big game hunter.

Anatomically, it seems very realistic. However, I wonder what they used as data to actually back that statement. However, to what extent is my question.

[bright veldt]

It’s just based on their anatomy which is…like, fair enough. It’s the best thing outside of, like, isotopic diet studies.

[cold cedar]

Well I'd argue that Torvosaurus wasn't compeletly a big game hunter. And considering the paleo environments that it lived in, it could be possible that it was a partial water way generalist, eating fish and possibly other organisms. Considering 1) Megalosaurids are found in coastal and water way deposits. 2)Megalosaurids are the sister taxa to spinosaurids 3) There seems to be evidence for this behavior: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4990902/

[bright veldt]

Animals can live around water bodies without being reliant on aquatic prey. Also seems a bit limiting? It’s adaptations point towards large prey.

Megalosaurids being closely related to Spinosaurids is also being overstated. Spinosaurs are very specialized compared to other carnosaur kin ecologically

[pearl briar]

why people still pronounce giga as "jai-ga-nuh-tuh-saw-ruhs"?
he was actually pronounced "gih-guh-nuh-tuh-saw-ruhs"

[light osprey]

90% of the formations we find are fluvial it being coastal doesn’t make it a piscivore.

[little mauve]

Large prey animals are going to be attracted to water as well & it's a great place for an ambush

[woeful falcon]

Who pronounces it jai-ga

Jig-ga I've heard but never jai

[pearl briar]

some ppl pronounce him like that
for example my english teacher

[ancient crystal]

He shouldn't be teaching english it sounds like

[elfin pulsar]

English teacher doesn’t know how to pronounce giga

[woeful falcon]

To their defense, gigantic is pronounced with a jai

[cerulean siren]

well guess what. God ain't pronounced JOD either.

Also it sounds weird in general when people pronounce him like that- idk-

[somber tartan]

Hey something just came across my mind, what exactly makes ratites not classified as non-avian dinosaurs? They are completely flightless and some of them even have at least one hand claw

Is it the lack of a tail? Well, large tail, rather than their tiny little nubs

Or is it the lack of multiple fingers

[bright veldt]

Avian dinosaur is literally just synonym for bird. “Avian” bird, dinosaur. Dinosaur that is a bird. Non-avian dinosaur just means all dinosaurs that ain’t birds.

[somber tartan]

Ah

[pearl briar]

Did Charles Darwin's evolution theory really state that we, humans evolve from ape?

[heady thunder]

I dont think so?

[viscid surge]

I couldn’t tell you if he actually said that originally, maybe he didn’t because it would be too scandalous not sure, but yes that’s sorta the implication of the theory if you apply it to us.

[elfin pulsar]

I think he said something about us and chimps/apes tho because ik people made fun of him by putting his face on a monkey lol

[steady rock]

how accurate is this brachiosaurus and its walking? https://twitter.com/pantheo27705718/status/1689515657455616000

パンテオン（半遁モード） (@pantheo27705718)

#DINOSAFARI
見よ！これがブラキオサウルスだ
全長13m
公式サイト https://t.co/4Ptu1IpI2U

Likes

488

Retweets

141

▶ Play video

Twitter · Aug 10, 2023, 5:54 AM

[pearl briar]

Brachi on the vid (Left)
Brachi irl (Right)

[steady rock]

cut it some slack, its a giant 14meter animatronic, i was more focused on its locamotion

[viscid surge]

Tbf you asked for how accurate it was and how accurate its movement was. All he did was show you the evidence lol.

[astral kelp]

new basilosaurid dropped

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w basilosaurid week moment

[compact leaf]

with the limitations of a moving animatronic I’m pretty impressed, the head in particular is good they didn’t turn it into giraffatitan

[next moss]

https://tenor.com/view/dj-khaled-another-one-one-more-time-gif-4816107

[fiery vector]

https://obscuredinosaurfacts.com/post/2023/07/05/azhdarchids.html

All sources are cited from experts at the bottom.

[frosty anvil]

IVE BEEN PRONOUNCING IT RIGHT LETS GOOOOO
tbf not much of a feat

[west drum]

Doesn’t the ‘giganto’ mean giant

so like, giant lizard

[glacial root]

Isnt it pronounced jif tho?

[woeful falcon]

Giganoto not giganto. The "giga" part does mean giant though

[light osprey]

Jif Peanut butter or gif?

[astral kelp]

Id prefer peanut butter

[glacial root]

Does it make any JIFference? Haha

But its jif/gif

[light osprey]

I’m pretty certain it’s gif, with a “g” specific sound

[glacial root]

The creator said its jif. We must obey.

[woeful falcon]

Paleo chat

[light osprey]

This discussion is older than most dinosaurs

[sullen cairn]

It’s a nuanced discussion of the phonetics and etymology of allosauroids

[glacial root]

I'm just saying, Giga doesnt sound wrong. But tbf on my native language I don't think we use "G" like you guys are saying without a "U" after, so maybe thats why it sounds correct to me

[light osprey]

I think there’s probably no definitive for either. Everyone can pronounce it however they want

[woeful falcon]

Well its both I'm pretty sure. J or G sound is fine but I've never heard giga pronounced "jai-ga"

[light osprey]

Jai? Like “jay”?

[woeful falcon]

No.

Like gigantic

[light osprey]

Hmm

[white matrix]

It's Giga (Gig Ah) Noto (Note Oh) Saurus (Soar Us)

[lusty lion]

https://youtu.be/hProVSqf0TI oooh boy....

[covert lintel]

that thumbnail does not give me hope

[lusty lion]

Indeed

[white matrix]

The idea that the Rex was even bullied is honestly kinda funny when all the rex has to do to win a fight is get one bite in

Now if you want to argue what dinosaur was more efficient that's definitely not the rex but the rex has the strongest bite force of any animal on land.

[woeful falcon]

"introducing nanotyrannus" lmao welp

[light osprey]

Tyrannosaurus is the epitome of efficiency

[white matrix]

Ahhh I wouldn't say that. I would say giganotosaurus was a more efficient hunter than Tyrannosaurus.

[woeful falcon]

I gave that video way more time than it deserved

based on what exactly? that's not to say it isn't but what could you provide that would showcase it being more efficient

never mind I already stopped caring

[compact leaf]

if we’re talking efficiency in dinosaurs (all animals for that matter) as a whole sauropods took it to an entirely new level

[woeful falcon]

to talk about efficiency would be to talk about how successful it was at hunting

[white matrix]

Honestly I believe in terms of efficiency the most effective dinosaur would have to be either Brachiosaurus or Diplodocus

[compact leaf]

sauropods as a whole pretty much share the title imo

[tranquil quartz]

Birds

[woeful falcon]

birds kinda knocked it out of the park

[white matrix]

Efficiency is determined on how well the dinosaur lived.

[woeful falcon]

you're talking about how efficient of a hunter it was

and no matter what you can't exactly determine how well it lived on a species scale because, well, we just have fossilized bone. and there aren't a lot of giga specimens to go off of

[light osprey]

And from the information we do have, Tyrannosaurus is quite the predator

[bright veldt]

Azhdarchids are kinda stupid in how efficient they are as flying predators. The largest flying animals to exist, being some of the most powerful flyers out there, ontop of being the fastest terrestrial pterosaurs. Their only real weakness is the inability to soar for great distances.

It’s kinda stupid how a giraffe sized pterosaur can both outfly most birds in a race in the air, and also outrun a trex on the ground.

[lavish frigate]

Are there any speed estimates for Azhdarchids?all I’ve really heard is they run somewhat like ungulates wich idk if it’s true or not but if it is….it scares me…

[light osprey]

They run faster than you

[bright veldt]

The giant ahzdarchids akin to quetzalcoatlus could fly at top speeds of over 100 mph (with estimated cruising speeds of 50-60), and are able to run up to 25 mph on the ground.

[tranquil quartz]

Nah thats crazy, 100 mph
What was evolution smoking

[lavish frigate]

No they don’t…..because I can’t run 😎

[pearl briar]

The actual dinosaur that bullied the t rex:
Triceratops & Ankylosaurus (don't forget Edmontosaurus too)

[light osprey]

The dinos that bullied tyrannosaurus… are the ones it hunted?

[ancient crystal]

Ah yes, the prey items

[pearl briar]

i mean... trike with his horns, anky with her club tail, and edmonto with his enormous size...

[light osprey]

Makes sense, instead of those tyrannosaurus hunted…..

[ancient crystal]

T. rex with the bone shattering bite

[tough parcel]

"Enormous size"

Bro barely reached rex's average size 😭

[jagged trellis]

i mean to be fair prey animals survive most encounters and for some relationships bully the ever living out of their predators(at that point, moreso just rare predation or chancing vs full on predation relationships), but those relationships aren't as comparable seeing the size and niche differences

[ancient crystal]

I feel like "bully," and "defend themselves effectively," mean different things.

[jagged trellis]

yes, which they do indeed do both for some cases, which as i pointed out varies for each relationship

[ancient crystal]

Anyways, does anyone have any up-to-date papers on Tyrannosaurus locomotion?

Specifically how their leg anatomy works.

[sullen cairn]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6387760/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223698

[white matrix]

Honestly it's incredible how more and more data comes out on Tyrannosaurus's speed and mobility. This is honestly a very great discovery because it means that Tyrannosaurus is not just a slow moving theropod it actually has some mobility to it.

Which makes up for the lack of mobility it was thought to have when hunting prey.

[sullen cairn]

Yeah plus you kinda need to be agile when the front half of your prey can easily skewer you

[white matrix]

True I actually researched into a good bit more The Rex was adapted to bite through nearly anything and we have extensive knowledge on the relationship. So it seems for the rex vs trike it was about a 50/50 or 50/60 because the only time Tyranno would be hunting Triceratops would be if there was nothing else around because there was other prey at that time

I believe the same would apply to Edmonto and Ankylosaurus

[sullen cairn]

yeah on average edmontosaurus was probably the "easiest" thing to hunt that rex lived with but it wasn't particularly common in Hell Creek and there were a few individuals that got absolutely gigantic

[white matrix]

That would be specimen regalis however there was a smaller sub species I forgot the name

[sullen cairn]

Rex lived with annectans which was ~5-6 tons average

[white matrix]

Yes Edmonto Annectans would have much easier to hunt

[sullen cairn]

Regalis lived just before Rex but a small amount of annectans got huge at up to ~15 tons

But yeah average annectans wouldn’t have particularly dangerous for Rex

[tranquil quartz]

You mean species?

[white matrix]

And it's like I said before Rex had other prey to eat. And yes
I said specimen by accident

[covert lintel]

iirc annectens could reach larger sizes than regalis, although both weren't super huge on average

[bright veldt]

The largest regalis get to about 7-8 tons or so. Annectans can get double that in rare cases.

[white matrix]

Was it the opposite ? My bad

[sullen cairn]

Yeah largest annectans can get like three times their average asymptotic mass

[bright veldt]

But yeah, I kinda feel like the threat of tyrannosaurus’s prey is often overstated.

[white matrix]

Most of Rex's prey was smaller than it. The only prey that was actually adapted to defend against it effectively was Triceratops and such
So it wouldn't have been as much of a fight with it's prey

[bright veldt]

Hadrosaurs primarily use numbers and mobility to escape danger, triceratops was the most common large dinosaur in its habitat and we have extensive evidence of interactions between the two, so it’s unlikely they weren’t frequent prey, and while ankylosaurus is insane compared to its kin in size and power, ankylosaurs in general are typically overhyped and depicted as invincible.

[sullen cairn]

Real

[covert lintel]

yeah. we've gotta find the sweet spot between "herbivores are all pushovers" and "actually everything tyrannosaurus preyed on could kill it just by looking at it". hear me out - let's try "largeish prey animals are dangerous but far from unkillable, just like their predators"

[white matrix]

Like I said before with most of Rex's prey such as Ankylosaurus and Triceratops it was more likely a 50/50 however with smaller prey not adapted to it it would most likely be a 75/25

It's similar to predators and prey today. Sometimes the predator wins but sometimes the prey gets away and the predator has severe injuries.
Just much larger

[sullen cairn]

I’d say it’s mostly that some people don’t seem to understand that prey animals almost always run first even if they can be dangerous when cornered, and thinking that two extreme outliers in edmontosaurus size represent most of the population

[bright veldt]

I doubt that considering if every time a trex hunted it’s prey there was a 50-50 chance of living then they’d all die pretty quick. A trex hunts hundreds of times in its lifetime. No real life predator-prey relationship has those odds.

[covert lintel]

if we're talking general success rate, 50/50 would be remarkably good odds - most predators have lower success rates than that, if i'm remembering right. not saying tyrannosaurus couldn't've been an exception to the trend, but it probably botched hunts more than it succeeded in 'em.
if we're talking mortality rate, erm. what scanova said

[ancient crystal]

I think people need to stop looking at dinosaur interactions as kaiju battles

[white matrix]

Yes but like everything we've been stating it's a generalization

[bright veldt]

And if we have evidence of there being specific methods that tyrannosaurs used to process triceratops carcasses, then they surely were eating them very frequently.

[astral kelp]

Pretty sure rex liked the neck of trike or something

[white matrix]

Well and the reason I say it was more so a 50/50 towards Triceratops is because Rex was not hunting exclusively Triceratops. It hunted other things and I stated before Triceratops would not be it's first choice.

[bright veldt]

We have evidence that they’d usually decapitate the triceratops in order to just not deal with the horns while they were feeding. On top of meat in the neck region in general being very nutritious.

[sullen cairn]

Tigers can have success rates as high as 50% when actually launching attacks against wild boar

[white matrix]

But we also have evidence of it biting onto the frill of it.

[covert lintel]

yep, 's probably because the neck's gotta be pretty beefy in order to support the Very LargeHuge head (feat. entirely solid frill for some reason) so there's a lot of good meat on there

[bright veldt]

? What does that have to do with anything? A bite to the frill could be during the struggle or decapitating by grabbing the frill and pulling rather than a literal decapitation lol

[white matrix]

As well with most predators if they get the neck it's over. And you have to remember the absolute power of a Rex's bite

[astral kelp]

Grill

[ancient crystal]

Sometimes I wish that Triceratops guy would come in here during one of these discussions

[white matrix]

I believe the most likely scenario is that if a Rex can get around to a Triceratops neck it's game over for the Trike however if the Trike can keep it away then the Triceratops wins

[tranquil quartz]

I remember the last time that happened with Big John