RE: Biggest Dino yet discovered
May 17, 2014 at 11:58 am
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2014 at 12:06 pm by Anomalocaris.)
This is hype.
There are a great deal of uncertainty to estimations of body weight of dinosaurs based on skeletons. Based on what we do know, dinosaurs were anatomically and bio mechanically significantly different from any living animal, making extrapolations from elephant somewhat questionable. There are substantial parts as yet we don't know. For example we are not even entirely clear on just how sauropods breath, and consequently how big were their lungs and how barrel Chested they were in life.
We also make the inference that being herbivore, sauropod dinosaurs would be like cows or bisons, and possess a enormous gut and possibly multiple stomachs to ferment indigestible vegetation. I am not sure if there really is incontrovertible evidence of that.
So we can't say for certain this dinosaur weighted 77 tons. We also can't say for certain that some other dinosaurs which we think weighted 70 tons didn't in fact weigh 100.
There were also other fragmentary fossil remains which hinted at physically larger dinosaurs then these.
The upshot is what is the largest dinosaur we know is not a well established, or even in principle an easily establisheble thing. This article is pure hype in its claim that this is the largest. Many other remains also has nearly as strong, or perhaps just as strong, claims to the same title.
There are a great deal of uncertainty to estimations of body weight of dinosaurs based on skeletons. Based on what we do know, dinosaurs were anatomically and bio mechanically significantly different from any living animal, making extrapolations from elephant somewhat questionable. There are substantial parts as yet we don't know. For example we are not even entirely clear on just how sauropods breath, and consequently how big were their lungs and how barrel Chested they were in life.
We also make the inference that being herbivore, sauropod dinosaurs would be like cows or bisons, and possess a enormous gut and possibly multiple stomachs to ferment indigestible vegetation. I am not sure if there really is incontrovertible evidence of that.
So we can't say for certain this dinosaur weighted 77 tons. We also can't say for certain that some other dinosaurs which we think weighted 70 tons didn't in fact weigh 100.
There were also other fragmentary fossil remains which hinted at physically larger dinosaurs then these.
The upshot is what is the largest dinosaur we know is not a well established, or even in principle an easily establisheble thing. This article is pure hype in its claim that this is the largest. Many other remains also has nearly as strong, or perhaps just as strong, claims to the same title.
