Re: New paper on pre-Archaeopteryx coelurosaurian dinosaurs

[Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 12:59 PM,  <vultur-10@neo.tamu.edu> wrote:

> I thought Gigantoraptor was ~2 tonnes, much smaller than e.g. Tyrannosaurus 
> or Spinosaurus. Has its size been revised upwards?


I was going by Senter and Robins (2010), who looked at the heights of
theropods based on hindlimb length.  _Gigantoraptor_ has a hip height
of 3.5m, which would have made it among the tallest of theropods.
Though not as tall as the largest _T. rex_, such as "Sue", which has a
hip height of around 4m.


In their original description of _Gigantoraptor_, Xu et al. (2007)
estimate the weight of the animal based on femoral circumference,
which may underestimate the mass of non-avian dinosaurs (Carrano,
2001).  Although the skeletal proportions suggest that _Gigantoraptor_
was a cursorial animal, and fairly slender for its size, if it was a
foraging herbivore, then it would have had a huge (and very heavy)
gut.


Cheers

Tim