Re: New Dinosaur from Argentina (DINOSAUR digest 1320)

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Steve  Brusatte wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 10:32:48 DRosent288 wrote: 
>
> > I think there was on sauropod that may have shared its environment with
> > T. Rex: Alamosaurus sanjuanensis.
> 
> Yeah, I think that is all that is really known to science now.  I
> *think* this new giant dinosaur from Texas most likely shared its
> environment with T. rex, but it may turn out just to be another
> species of Alamosaurus.  I don't think any technical literature on
> this new dino will be published for some time.

In any case, these sauropods are only known from the southernmost part of
_T. rex_'s range. Most _T. rex_ fossils are from more northern climes,
where there are no known sauropod fossils.

> This brings me to the question: were two species of large, meat eating
> dinosaurs competing, in an evolutionary sense, to "get the prey," and
> therefore evolved large sizes?  Was it an arms race?  Could
> Giganotosaurus and the new guy have been directly competing?  Well, it
> seems like Giganotosaurus and the new theropod were separated by a few
> million years, so this is probably not the case either.

I wonder if it's possible that _Giganotosaurus_ is ancestral to this new
dinosaur? I guess we'll see ...
 
-- T. Michael Keesey .................................. <tmk@dinosauricon.com>
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