Biggest Dino yet discovered

[JesusHChrist]

Jesus could plow a lot of acres with that dino.

[Anomalocaris]

Jesus could plow a lot of acres with that dino.

He would be buried in manure before being squashed flat by the tail.

[max-greece]

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.

Now don't be such a spoil sport.

Its highly likely they did have enormous stomachs as they had no chewing teeth. The vegetation available to them was very poor so they would have to eat tonnes of the stuff.

Its hard to think how else they would have got enough inside them to survive.

Yes - there are many unknowns but this creature is bigger than Argentinasaurus - that is for sure. How big it actually was is open to question - but it was certainly very very large indeed.

Also agree that there have been fragments of bones found that might indicate even larger dinos out there. Great! Right now however this is the largest we have confidence on.

[Anomalocaris]

Now don't be such a spoil sport.

Its highly likely they did have enormous stomachs as they had no chewing teeth. The vegetation available to them was very poor so they would have to eat tonnes of the stuff.

Its hard to think how else they would have got enough inside them to survive.

Yes - there are many unknowns but this creature is bigger than Argentinasaurus - that is for sure. How big it actually was is open to question - but it was certainly very very large indeed.

Also agree that there have been fragments of bones found that might indicate even larger dinos out there. Great! Right now however this is the largest we have confidence on.

I am not sure just how much they need to eat to survive. Very large creatures tend to be more energy efficient than smaller ones. So proportionally they ought to need less to survive than bisons or cows. They may, at least at adult stage, also be inertial endotherms, meaning they don't generate their own body heat, but really on favorable mass to skin area ratio to maintain active body temperature, thus drastically cutting down further how much they needed to eat to get around. Also, we have no clear concept of how long they live and how fast they grow. If they grow slowly and live a very long time, their energy and nutritional budget can further be reduced.

I don't know how much direct evidence there is of just what sort of plants they ate. A lot of the idea that sauropods ate low quality food that must sit around and ferment inside a great big gut came from the the fact that some sauropods fossils seem to have gastroliths inside where their stomachs were. They caused some people to speculate that sauropods ate heavy woody plants and needed to ground down their foot by swallowing rocks with their food. But I am not sure this in conclusive evidence that their diet must be so poor that they must possess enormous fermentation tanks in the bodies to extract any nutrition. Also I don't think all sauropods have been found with gastroliths.

All I am saying is error bars on sauropod dinosaur size and weight estimates are so large, and those on so many sauropods overlap, that not a great deal of weight can be attached to any claims of "largest".

[Elskidor]

They needa hurry up and find a dragon.

[max-greece]

Now don't be such a spoil sport.

Its highly likely they did have enormous stomachs as they had no chewing teeth. The vegetation available to them was very poor so they would have to eat tonnes of the stuff.

Its hard to think how else they would have got enough inside them to survive.

Yes - there are many unknowns but this creature is bigger than Argentinasaurus - that is for sure. How big it actually was is open to question - but it was certainly very very large indeed.

Also agree that there have been fragments of bones found that might indicate even larger dinos out there. Great! Right now however this is the largest we have confidence on.

I am not sure just how much they need to eat to survive. Very large creatures tend to be more energy efficient than smaller ones. So proportionally they ought to need less to survive than bisons or cows. They may, at least at adult stage, also be inertial endotherms, meaning they don't generate their own body heat, but really on favorable mass to skin area ratio to maintain active body temperature, thus drastically cutting down further how much they needed to eat to get around. Also, we have no clear concept of how long they live and how fast they grow. If they grow slowly and live a very long time, their energy and nutritional budget can further be reduced.

I don't know how much direct evidence there is of just what sort of plants they ate. A lot of the idea that sauropods ate low quality food that must sit around and ferment inside a great big gut came from the the fact that some sauropods fossils seem to have gastroliths inside where their stomachs were. They caused some people to speculate that sauropods ate heavy woody plants and needed to ground down their foot by swallowing rocks with their food. But I am not sure this in conclusive evidence that their diet must be so poor that they must possess enormous fermentation tanks in the bodies to extract any nutrition. Also I don't think all sauropods have been found with gastroliths.

All I am saying is error bars on sauropod dinosaur size and weight estimates are so large, and those on so many sauropods overlap, that not a great deal of weight can be attached to any claims of "largest".

Well its a little less negative than before and I agree with much of it.

I noticed you referred to them as potentially inertial endotherms as adults. This certainly implies that as youngsters they would have been warm blooded and that seems highly likely.

Whilst we don't yet know how long they lived we do know that they did not weigh more than 3 Kg at birth (to fit in the eggs - of which we have found thousands). Even if the estimates of Argentinasaurus are wildly out and they are barely 50 tonnes as opposed to 70 that is still one hell of a growth curve even assuming that they lived 70 years and never stopped growing.

The idea of them converting from warm bodied to cold is an interesting one - but do we have any examples of that process for any other species> I've never heard that one before.

We don't know exactly what they ate but we do know what plants were around in abundance at the time. None of them appear to be nutritious.

From what we do know of their design - tiny heads, long necks, able to swing round a huge area without moving their feet, low quality vegetarian diet they look designed to feed all their waking hours. Therefore - they ate a lot, therefore they had big stomachs.

Finally, size estimates based upon diameters of known bones is not unreasonable. There are a few assumptions on bone density to make and thereafter an estimate of supportable weight can be made.

On the basis that they are not over-engineered these look to be bones that can support the weights estimated - i.e. 70 tonnes and more.

Yes - there's a fair amount of speculation but I think it is more than mere guesswork.