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Spinosaurus aegyptiacus v Tyrannosaurus rex
Topic Started: Jan 7 2012, 02:16 AM (459,202 Views)
Wolf Eagle
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Tyrannosaurus rex
Tyrannosaurus is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex (rex meaning "king" in Latin), commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other tyrannosaurids. Fossils are found in a variety of rock formations dating to the Maastrichtian age of the upper Cretaceous Period, 67 to 65.5 million years ago.[1] It was among the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a massive skull balanced by a long, heavy tail. Relative to the large and powerful hindlimbs, Tyrannosaurus forelimbs were small, though unusually powerful for their size, and bore two clawed digits. Although other theropods rivaled or exceeded Tyrannosaurus rex in size, it was the largest known tyrannosaurid and one of the largest known land predators. By far the largest carnivore in its environment, Tyrannosaurus rex may have been an apex predator, preying upon hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, although some experts have suggested it was primarily a scavenger. The debate over Tyrannosaurus as apex predator or scavenger is among the longest running in paleontology. Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land carnivores of all time; the largest complete specimen, FMNH PR2081 ("Sue"), measured 12.8 metres (42 ft) long, and was 4.0 metres (13.1 ft) tall at the hips. Mass estimates have varied widely over the years, from more than 7.2 metric tons (7.9 short tons), to less than 4.5 metric tons (5.0 short tons), with most modern estimates ranging between 5.4 and 6.8 metric tons (6.0 and 7.5 short tons). Packard et al. (2009) tested dinosaur mass estimation procedures on elephants and concluded that dinosaur estimations are flawed and produce over-estimations; thus, the weight of Tyrannosaurus could be much less than usually estimated. Other estimations have concluded that the largest known Tyrannosaurus specimens had a weight exceeding 9 tonnes.

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Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
Spinosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur which lived in what is now North Africa, from the lower Albian to lower Cenomanian stages of the Cretaceous period, about 112 to 97 million years ago. Spinosaurus may be the largest of all known carnivorous dinosaurs, even larger than Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus. Estimates published in 2005 and 2007 suggest that it was 12.6 to 18 metres (41 to 59 ft) in length and 7 to 20.9 tonnes (7.7 to 23.0 short tons) in weight. The skull of Spinosaurus was long and narrow like that of a modern crocodilian. Spinosaurus is thought to have eaten fish; evidence suggests that it lived both on land and in water like a modern crocodilian. The distinctive spines of Spinosaurus, which were long extensions of the vertebrae, grew to at least 1.65 meters (5.4 ft) long and were likely to have had skin connecting them, forming a sail-like structure, although some authors have suggested that the spines were covered in fat and formed a hump. Multiple functions have been put forward for this structure, including thermoregulation and display. Dal Sasso et al. (2005) assumed that Spinosaurus and Suchomimus had the same body proportions in relation to their skull lengths, and thereby calculated that Spinosaurus was 16 to 18 meters (52 to 59 ft) in length and 7 to 9 tonnes (7.7 to 9.9 short tons) in weight. The Dal Sasso et al. estimates were criticized because the skull length estimate was uncertain, and (assuming that body mass increases as the cube of body length) scaling Suchomimus which was 11 meters (36 ft) long and 3.8 tonnes (4.2 short tons) in mass to the range of estimated lengths of Spinosaurus would produce an estimated body mass of 11.7 to 16.7 tonnes (12.9 to 18.4 short tons).

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Edited by Taipan, Apr 24 2015, 10:10 PM.
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Jinfengopteryx
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Vobby
Sep 25 2013, 07:08 AM
I voted T-Rex due to my religious beliefs, then I started reading the thread, trying to actually learn something. I'm at page 16, it's damn a long way. I'm disappointed by how much uncertainty there is around spinosaurus size, weight and sail/hump/crest...
Maybe that's just me, but how does religious belief relate to that matchup? I doubt there is a religion where Tyrannosaurus is holy. Sorry, if I got something wrong.
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thesporerex
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Jinfengopteryx
Sep 27 2013, 03:55 AM
but how does religious belief relate to that matchup? I doubt there is a religion where Tyrannosaurus is holy.
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Jinfengopteryx
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I like how you cut out the rest of my comment, where I apologized for getting it completely wrong, to make me look more retarded than I am actually.
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SpinoInWonderland
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Jinfengopteryx
Sep 27 2013, 03:55 AM
I doubt there is a religion where Tyrannosaurus is holy.
There is, it's mostly in Youtube and Topix, though.
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Jinfengopteryx
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LOL. How is their scripture called? COTD?
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Vobby
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lol no problem dude, it's a joke, I just meant that I act very childish when Tyrannosaurus is involved in some match, especially in this particular match, in which the winner would definetly be the stronger theropod. So, since theropods are the coolest animals ever to exist, the winner of this match is the coolest animal ever to exist. And I want it to be Tyrannosaurus rex. Did I say childish?
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thesporerex
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theropod
Sep 14 2013, 01:45 AM
^Not "much earlier", just a little (<1t after reaching the age of 18, and this isn't a reliable or obligatory growthrate)

Sue is a particularly old specimen, that's why in probably over 40 individuals we find none older than it, what you call young adults are not young specimens at all.
A 16 year old T. rex is a young adult, not a 24 year old. And there are rexes that age (16-18 years), that have "reached adulthood", or rather, sexual maturity, and those are not 11,5-11,9m, they are 10-11m (I'm speaking of bobby, bucky, black beauty etc.).
And of course, you can also apply this point to other theropods; if you consider most T. rex specimens young and not fully grown, the same likely holds true for other species. Considering in our rather large sample we find little evidence, if at all, of rexes bigger than sue, and the vast majority seems smaller by a good margin, it's pretty clear it is above average, not below.
And again, all your arguments can also be applied to Spinosaurus, or Carcharodontosaurus, or Giganotosaurus-just to a much larger extent considering our sample size is smaller by orders of magnitude, greatly decreasing the confidence in finding old and large specimens among them.

If you consider the holotype or AMNH (which btw are decent-sized rexes) "young", who tells you MNSN v4740 isn't also?
Ok lets try this again(I was going to reply earlier but my motherfucking computer crashed while I was fucking typing that shit up, Also I am too lazy to reply on time)

I have to say that my statement of sue being lower than average is an exageration, But I would still say sue is averaged size. This paper has some information on T-rex's growth rate. On page 6(aka the conclusion) it shows the growth rate of T-rex.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/1551/1875.full.pdf+html
It seems that T-rex reaches the technical 'fullsize'(the point when growth becomes completely unoticable' at around 22-27 years of age. Only 5 out of all 30-40 speciemens of tyrannosaurus have exceeded 22 years of age. Source:
NOTE: Page 15 is where you can find the ages.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2006/07/11/313.5784.213.DC1/Erickson.SOM.pdf

FMNH PR2081/sue is the only tyrannosaurus out of 30-40 specimens to exceed that age range. It is the only Tyrannosaurus found that we can say for certain that has reached the 'fullsize' margin. It does state that the range might have been 16-19 years old but if that is the case Sue is a freakishly large Tyrannosaurus but that isn't the case since it is a completely normal Tyrannosaurus just much older than the rest. I would say the average for Tyrannosaurus is around 12 metres.
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thesporerex
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Jinfengopteryx
Sep 14 2013, 01:48 AM
Also, that argument could be used for other theropods as well, because the largest Allosaurus specimen are 13-19 years old:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmor.10406/abstract;jsessionid=A4AEC1BEB062FBC7F8A13A822ED88119.d03t02

That depends on the growth rate for Allosaurus
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Jinfengopteryx
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Some information about growth rate is given there (maximum growth rate occurs at an age of 15 years). But I don't have the full paper, so I don't know how it continued growing.
Edited by Jinfengopteryx, Oct 1 2013, 10:45 PM.
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theropod
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thesporerex
Oct 1 2013, 10:39 PM
theropod
Sep 14 2013, 01:45 AM
^Not "much earlier", just a little (<1t after reaching the age of 18, and this isn't a reliable or obligatory growthrate)

Sue is a particularly old specimen, that's why in probably over 40 individuals we find none older than it, what you call young adults are not young specimens at all.
A 16 year old T. rex is a young adult, not a 24 year old. And there are rexes that age (16-18 years), that have "reached adulthood", or rather, sexual maturity, and those are not 11,5-11,9m, they are 10-11m (I'm speaking of bobby, bucky, black beauty etc.).
And of course, you can also apply this point to other theropods; if you consider most T. rex specimens young and not fully grown, the same likely holds true for other species. Considering in our rather large sample we find little evidence, if at all, of rexes bigger than sue, and the vast majority seems smaller by a good margin, it's pretty clear it is above average, not below.
And again, all your arguments can also be applied to Spinosaurus, or Carcharodontosaurus, or Giganotosaurus-just to a much larger extent considering our sample size is smaller by orders of magnitude, greatly decreasing the confidence in finding old and large specimens among them.

If you consider the holotype or AMNH (which btw are decent-sized rexes) "young", who tells you MNSN v4740 isn't also?
Ok lets try this again(I was going to reply earlier but my motherfucking computer crashed while I was fucking typing that shit up, Also I am too lazy to reply on time)

I have to say that my statement of sue being lower than average is an exageration, But I would still say sue is averaged size. This paper has some information on T-rex's growth rate. On page 6(aka the conclusion) it shows the growth rate of T-rex.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/1551/1875.full.pdf+html
It seems that T-rex reaches the technical 'fullsize'(the point when growth becomes completely unoticable' at around 22-27 years of age. Only 5 out of all 30-40 speciemens of tyrannosaurus have exceeded 22 years of age. Source:
NOTE: Page 15 is where you can find the ages.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2006/07/11/313.5784.213.DC1/Erickson.SOM.pdf

FMNH PR2081/sue is the only tyrannosaurus out of 30-40 specimens to exceed that age range. It is the only Tyrannosaurus found that we can say for certain that has reached the 'fullsize' margin. It does state that the range might have been 16-19 years old but if that is the case Sue is a freakishly large Tyrannosaurus but that isn't the case since it is a completely normal Tyrannosaurus just much older than the rest. I would say the average for Tyrannosaurus is around 12 metres.
Sue may not be particularly large for a T. rex that old, however you have to consider most T. rex specimens never reach their full physical maturity, neither do most theropods reach a corresponding age. Just talking about animals that reached a certain age is absolutely pointless


@jingoferx: It´s either COTD or it´s the stuff claimed by Palaeosaurus, Topphilosopher etc.
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ArachnidKid
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Vobby
Sep 25 2013, 07:08 AM
I voted T-Rex due to my religious beliefs, then I started reading the thread, trying to actually learn something. I'm at page 16, it's damn a long way. I'm disappointed by how much uncertainty there is around spinosaurus size, weight and sail/hump/crest...
Agreed, and yet very sure assertions have been made in regards to why it would win rolleyes
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theropod
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^Pardon?
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Vobby
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I just realized two things:
1) There is a very well documented blog dedicated only to theropods, and this blog is in Italian, my language, and this is wonderfull.
2) The author of this blog, Cau, states that Spinosaurus wasn't bigger than other theropods like Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus.

So...
T. rex wins. Hands down. And I'm very happy.
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Palaeogirl
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Vobby
Oct 6 2013, 12:43 AM
I just realized two things:
1) There is a very well documented blog dedicated only to theropods, and this blog is in Italian, my language, and this is wonderfull.
2) The author of this blog, Cau, states that Spinosaurus wasn't bigger than other theropods like Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus.

So...
T. rex wins. Hands down. And I'm very happy.
Cau's estimates are ridiculous. His Spinosaurus has a shorter skull than T.rex.
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theropod
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It has been elaborated in many places why we should not take Cau's deductions/demonstrative estimates at face value, they totally disagree with all other scientific estimates, often in a fashion that is at (or passing) the brink of credibility. But you are certainly lucky to be Italian.

To make it short, many of his considerations only consider half the evidence. Eg. his scaling of "Spinitator/Spinonyx" obviously gives the skull a completely oversized rostrum (not just a long rostrum, but a much too massive one), based on scaling to it's depth at a rather arbitrary point. On another occasion he claims generally megalosauroids had a 2/3 ratio between rostrum and total lenght of the skull, immediately applying this generalisation to Spinosaurus of course (and doing the same with generalised skull/body ratios for coming to his 12.5m figure), regardless of measurement issues and other spinosaurid skull anatomy.
He deduces Spinosaurus was similar to Tyrannosaurus in size based on the dimensions of Vertebrae belonging to the (subadult!) Spinosaurus holotype, because the vertebrae have a lower neural arch when ignoring the spinous process, funny enough disregarding that the centra are longer and more massive and neural arch height is every bit as arbitrary as total height including the hypertrophied spines.
All this is not reflected in other, rigorous works, so take it with a grain of salt instead of jumping to conclusions based on it.

I'd far prefer Hartman's models of both the skull and the whole animal, showing a Spinosaurus nearly 16m in lenght at a fairly robust built, definitely much bigger than T. rex.
http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/super-spinosaurus6282013

This is what is largely agreed upon by experts, Cau's deduction being just as much of an outlier as occasional suggestions of 19-20m Spinosaurus.
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