Theres a simple rule that I always use when dealing with the "biggest" issue...who is claiming it to be the biggest? Many recent finds that are claimed 'bigger then t-rex" are from reporters or articles that are looking for a heading. Simply put they would not sell many papers with a title,
"ALMOST BUT NOT NEARLY AS BIG AS T-REX"!If you read the articles carefully you'll almost always find the paleontologist or whoever it is being interviewed saying stuff like- a T-rex sized dinosaur- in proportion to T-rex- and of course the killer, may have grown larger!
What I hate is all the books, articles, toys, websites that claim all these other theropods are larger then T-rex, and then in their 'offical' measurments place them all at say 39 ft. So it seems larger means exactly the same length.
Admittedly this is changing however. Thanks to all these lovely new finds the stats seem to be reflecting the true story. Yet I think we're looking at this the wrong way. Up until recently we've only had the one real big carnivore to excite us, now we have 5, thats the cool thing I believe, that there were actually a bunch of these monsters runnign around!
Phil Hore
National Dinosaur Museum
Canberra, Australia
ph (02) 62302655
A child was brought into this world. A child of light and innocence. A beutiful child of with talent, grace and integrity. A child to lead us into a glorious future....his name...John Wayne.
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>From: Pluto77189@aol.com >Reply-To: Pluto77189@aol.com >To: dinosaur@usc.edu >Subject: "Largest" dinosaurs... >Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 14:37:05 -0500 > >OK, I'm bored at work, so here's a random thought-- > > I went ahead and looked up some info on the recent supposed "largest" dinosaurs: Giganotosaurs, carcaradontasaurs, Argintiniosaurus, etc...(I know I misspelled them). > >I am a bit frustrated about these claims. It seems that they are based on WAY to fragmentary remains for such claims. Even Spinosaurus, which remains SEEMED to be suggestive of a huge animal, were not really, ahhh...complete. > >I just find it difficult to put any credibility in these claims. With T-rex, we have sufficient remains to know--definitavly--how big any of the individuals was, at least in length, heigh!
t,!
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etc. Recent therapods claiming the BIGGER THAN T-REX!!!! status are doing so with only one or two fragmentary remains. >I cannot see how any such claim can be taken seriously given the inability to accuratly extrapolate lengths from the complete remains of OTHER species using the FRAGMENTARY remains of "new" ones and scaling the up.--pardon the run-on. > >I saw the skeletal reconstructions of argintiniosaurus( I think it was argintiniosaurs...) and Giganotosaurs mounted in a museam. I Assumed that to do such an extensive reconstruction, much of the fossils were known. I was wrong. > >I can't see how they justify the claim of a 100+ ton animal from a few bones. The fossil record is too long and too varied to allow such scaling up any accuracy. > >I want to see more evidence, more bones, and a mostly complete skeleton before I'm willing to let T-rex step down. > >