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Spinosaurus aegyptiacus v Tyrannosaurus rex
Topic Started: Jan 7 2012, 02:16 AM (459,299 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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MysteryMeat
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Fragillimus335
Dec 28 2012, 06:16 AM
Holotype, subadult- 12.5-14.5 meters, 5-7 tons
SAM 124, possible young adult- 14-15 meters, 9-10 tons
MSMN V4047, likely adult- 16-18 meters, 14-17 tons.
There's no way SAM 124 is that big.

Take a look at the size of that vertebrae:
Posted Image

And Sue is not the largest T. rex. It's the largest of the more complete ones, and I think it's also the largest with femur preserved, but don't quote me on the latter part.
Edited by MysteryMeat, Dec 28 2012, 10:24 AM.
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Fragillimus335
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MysteryMeat
Dec 28 2012, 10:21 AM
Fragillimus335
Dec 28 2012, 06:16 AM
Holotype, subadult- 12.5-14.5 meters, 5-7 tons
SAM 124, possible young adult- 14-15 meters, 9-10 tons
MSMN V4047, likely adult- 16-18 meters, 14-17 tons.
There's no way SAM 124 is that big.

Take a look at the size of that vertebrae:
Posted Image

And Sue is not the largest T. rex. It's the largest of the more complete ones, and I think it's also the largest with femur preserved, but don't quote me on the latter part.
Link is broken, and you are probably right, SAM was likely about the same size as the holotype specimen.
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SpinoInWonderland
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MysteryMeat
Dec 28 2012, 04:11 AM
brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 27 2012, 05:29 PM
He doesn't need to, a skeletal already exists
To clarify, I meant build me the holotype at 14.5 meters with the published drawings.
What you posted is MSNM V4047 sized Spino.
Can you not read it says IPHG 1912
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MysteryMeat
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brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 28 2012, 01:55 PM
MysteryMeat
Dec 28 2012, 04:11 AM
brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 27 2012, 05:29 PM
He doesn't need to, a skeletal already exists
To clarify, I meant build me the holotype at 14.5 meters with the published drawings.
What you posted is MSNM V4047 sized Spino.
Can you not read it says IPHG 1912
Can you not see the rostrum is over a meter long?
The dentary is about a meter long, while in the holotype the dentary is only 75cm.
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SpinoInWonderland
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MysteryMeat
Dec 28 2012, 02:02 PM
brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 28 2012, 01:55 PM
MysteryMeat
Dec 28 2012, 04:11 AM
brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 27 2012, 05:29 PM
He doesn't need to, a skeletal already exists
To clarify, I meant build me the holotype at 14.5 meters with the published drawings.
What you posted is MSNM V4047 sized Spino.
Can you not read it says IPHG 1912
Can you not see the rostrum is over a meter long?
The dentary is about a meter long, while in the holotype the dentary is only 75cm.
That only means that he placed MSNM 4047's head on IPHG 1912's body
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MysteryMeat
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brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 28 2012, 02:04 PM
MysteryMeat
Dec 28 2012, 02:02 PM
brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 28 2012, 01:55 PM
MysteryMeat
Dec 28 2012, 04:11 AM
brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 27 2012, 05:29 PM
He doesn't need to, a skeletal already exists
To clarify, I meant build me the holotype at 14.5 meters with the published drawings.
What you posted is MSNM V4047 sized Spino.
Can you not read it says IPHG 1912
Can you not see the rostrum is over a meter long?
The dentary is about a meter long, while in the holotype the dentary is only 75cm.
That only means that he placed MSNM 4047's head on IPHG 1912's body
Why would he put MSNM V4047's head on holotype's body?

EDIT: nevermind Broly, the body is scaled to the holotype, it's about 12 meter long along the curve.
With a scaled-down head, it would be a 13.5 meter animal.
Edited by MysteryMeat, Dec 28 2012, 02:41 PM.
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bone crusher
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theropod
Dec 27 2012, 09:14 PM
maybe not, but it may jsut as well be 18m as 14m. what makes you think 14m has better credentials? The size is uncertain, but since when does that tell us we have to use lower figures, especially regaridng we are using sue, the largest of 31 T. rex specimens, agaisnt the only evidentially adult spinosaurus that has by one of only two published size estimates been said to eb 16-18m? As i wrote, there are clear indications for the Dal Sasso figure to be correct.

And was an 80t Brachiosaurus ever published? even more importantly, can an 80t totally overestimated Brachiosaurus seriously be compared to a size estimate for spinosaurus that bases on its relatives and that was published in 2005?
I'm not saying 14m has more credentials, I'm simply saying it's pointless to nail down Spino's size at this stage since the margin of error is too big. If much of Spino's length was the tail then the weight could drastically change compared to some of the more liberal ones.
Maybe we can just use Hartman's drawing for now for the fun of it.
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Verdugo
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Quote:
 
http://home.comcast.net/~eoraptor/Megalosauroidea.htm#Spinosaurusaegyptiacus
Clearly, Mortimer is known for greatly over exagerated estimates. Totally debunked, isn´t it? Only in your mind, in reality 16-18m remains a totally valid figure.

I've never said that Mortimer exaggerated dinosaur size, because she DIDN'T make those estimations, those are not Mortimer estimates, she just borrowed it from other scientists, and it has been a long time since Mortimer last updated her figure so many estimations are considered to be outdated. For example:

http://home.comcast.net/~eoraptor/Tyrannosauroidea.html#Tyrannosaurusrex
^ 12,3m Stan; 12,8m Sue but weighs only 5,654 tonnes and 13,8m MOR 008. Are you happy if i use those size estimation ???
Quote:
 
There is another way, and that is giving it the head-body proportions of Baryonyx or Suchomimus; the resulting animal would be 16,2m as a MINIMUM figure

There are 3 problems with the head-body proportions method

First, those specimens are a bit incompleted so size estimate is uncertain

Second, you simply DON'T have enough specimens to apply this method. Different specimens in a species have proportionally different body parts relative to its size. Some may have proportionally skull, feet, neck, other may have proportionally longer legs, thinner femur, shorter arms or longer tail. Do you see the problem here ? You use only 2 less than 50% completed specimens from 2 different species, if you want to apply this method accurately, you need to have more completed speciemns. If Stan was only a skull, he would be a large specimen, much larger than he really is, so his size is greatly over-exaggerated

Third, according to @MysteryMeat, Baryonyx has proportionally longer tail so it would likely to have lower head/body length ratio than Spinosaurus. Also, larger Theropod tends to have porportionally larger skull than their relatives. All of those point out that Spino would likely to have higher head/body length ratio than Baryonyx which would result in having shorter length and proportionally larger skull

This head-body proportions method is a bit over-simplified, that why there are not many scientists use this method. Why don't you go by counting the vertebrate, and you will see the only way you could make Spino to be 17m long is adding more vertebrate to its tail, unless you want to argue that Spino would have more cervical or dorsal vertebrate than other basal tetanuraes

Even Dal Sasso himself reconstructed Spino with a rather long tail
Posted Image
Lord of the Allosaurs
 
Yet the most recent studies on Tyrannosaurus' bite suggest less than three tons,

Which study, do you have the paper for that ?. 3 tonnes is the MINIMUM bite force for Stan, and we all know that Stan maximum bite force is 6 tonnes and Stan is not a very large T rex, larger T rex like Sue would bite even HARDER
Fragillimus
 
We have one, and possibly two adult Spinosaurus's. MSNM V4047 is probably an adult, and SAM 124 is iffy at best, due to being quite a bit smaller, and very fragmentary. The holotype is a juvenile, this is widely known. Also, Tyrannosaurus is known from ~30 skeletons, and it is the largest. V4047 is known from 1, or possibly 2 adults, and Sue is the largest. It was almost surely not a "Sue" individual....

Yes, we do have more than 30 specimens for T rex, but MOST of them are VERY fragmentary and incompleted, size estimations are definitely UNCERTAIN.

There are only 2 or 3 T rex specimens are more than 50% completed actually
Edited by Verdugo, Dec 28 2012, 06:16 PM.
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theropod
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Verdugo
Dec 28 2012, 06:10 PM
Quote:
 
http://home.comcast.net/~eoraptor/Megalosauroidea.htm#Spinosaurusaegyptiacus
Clearly, Mortimer is known for greatly over exagerated estimates. Totally debunked, isn´t it? Only in your mind, in reality 16-18m remains a totally valid figure.

I've never said that Mortimer exaggerated dinosaur size, because she DIDN'T make those estimations, those are not Mortimer estimates, she just borrowed it from other scientists, and it has been a long time since Mortimer last updated her figure so many estimations are considered to be outdated. For example:

http://home.comcast.net/~eoraptor/Tyrannosauroidea.html#Tyrannosaurusrex
^ 12,3m Stan; 12,8m Sue but weighs only 5,654 tonnes and 13,8m MOR 008. Are you happy if i use those size estimation ???
Quote:
 
There is another way, and that is giving it the head-body proportions of Baryonyx or Suchomimus; the resulting animal would be 16,2m as a MINIMUM figure

There are 3 problems with the head-body proportions method

First, those specimens are a bit incompleted so size estimate is uncertain

Second, you simply DON'T have enough specimens to apply this method. Different specimens in a species have proportionally different body parts relative to its size. Some may have proportionally skull, feet, neck, other may have proportionally longer legs, thinner femur, shorter arms or longer tail. Do you see the problem here ? You use only 2 less than 50% completed specimens from 2 different species, if you want to apply this method accurately, you need to have more completed speciemns. If Stan was only a skull, he would be a large specimen, much larger than he really is, so his size is greatly over-exaggerated

Third, according to @MysteryMeat, Baryonyx has proportionally longer tail so it would likely to have lower head/body length ratio than Spinosaurus. Also, larger Theropod tends to have porportionally larger skull than their relatives. All of those point out that Spino would likely to have higher head/body length ratio than Baryonyx which would result in having shorter length and proportionally larger skull

This head-body proportions method is a bit over-simplified, that why there are not many scientists use this method. Why don't you go by counting the vertebrate, and you will see the only way you could make Spino to be 17m long is adding more vertebrate to its tail, unless you want to argue that Spino would have more cervical or dorsal vertebrate than other basal tetanuraes

Even Dal Sasso himself reconstructed Spino with a rather long tail
Posted Image
Lord of the Allosaurs
 
Yet the most recent studies on Tyrannosaurus' bite suggest less than three tons,

Which study, do you have the paper for that ?. 3 tonnes is the MINIMUM bite force for Stan, and we all know that Stan maximum bite force is 6 tonnes and Stan is not a very large T rex, larger T rex like Sue would bite even HARDER
Fragillimus
 
We have one, and possibly two adult Spinosaurus's. MSNM V4047 is probably an adult, and SAM 124 is iffy at best, due to being quite a bit smaller, and very fragmentary. The holotype is a juvenile, this is widely known. Also, Tyrannosaurus is known from ~30 skeletons, and it is the largest. V4047 is known from 1, or possibly 2 adults, and Sue is the largest. It was almost surely not a "Sue" individual....

Yes, we do have more than 30 specimens for T rex, but MOST of them are VERY fragmentary and incompleted, size estimations are definitely UNCERTAIN.

There are only 2 or 3 T rex specimens are more than 50% completed actually
I never said everything there was up to date, but she still has an estimate for Spinosaurus in the database, also one for the holotype.

And you might have noticed the questioin mark next to MOR´s size estimates, maybe because it was jsut scaled to a skull lenght figure from a news article that likely isn´t the same as sues 1,4m figure but rather the 1,5m one.

Quote:
 
Second, you simply DON'T have enough specimens to apply this method. Different specimens in a species have proportionally different body parts relative to its size. Some may have proportionally skull, feet, neck, other may have proportionally longer legs, thinner femur, shorter arms or longer tail. Do you see the problem here ? You use only 2 less than 50% completed specimens from 2 different species, if you want to apply this method accurately, you need to have more completed speciemns. If Stan was only a skull, he would be a large specimen, much larger than he really is, so his size is greatly over-exaggerated

an animal with a 50% larger skull might be 60% larger in total, or only 40%, maybe 30%, maybe 70%. it still centers around the 50%, that´s a basic rule of probability.

Not a reason why we should say it is better to totally disregard its relatives proportions.

Quote:
 
Third, according to @MysteryMeat, Baryonyx has proportionally longer tail so it would likely to have lower head/body length ratio than Spinosaurus. Also, larger Theropod tends to have porportionally larger skull than their relatives. All of those point out that Spino would likely to have higher head/body length ratio than Baryonyx which would result in having shorter length and proportionally larger skull

Larger theropods don´t always tend to have proprotionally larger skulls, have a try with T. rex and Daspletosaurus for example.

Actually you are assuming a proportionally larger skull than in T. rex if you make Spinosaurus 14,5m long, with a 1,75m skull.

I repeat myself, I don´t see any reason to suspect drastically different proportions from Suchomimus or baryonyx-unless there is anything pointing out to it, to date soemthing that doesn´t exist.

Quote:
 
Yes, we do have more than 30 specimens for T rex, but MOST of them are VERY fragmentary and incompleted, size estimations are definitely UNCERTAIN.

that has nothing to do with the point. of 31 T. rexes, Sue is the largest (except for single toebones that are hard to even assign to a phalanx position...). That has nothing to do with others being more fragmentary than Sue, they are still smaller than her even tough not completely known. Would you say the holotype of spinosaurus was larger than the Dal Sasso specimen because it was fragmentary?
Edited by theropod, Dec 28 2012, 08:53 PM.
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TyrantLizardKing
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Imo Rex would win this if the Spinosaurus was 14.5 metres as some people say, but if it was facing a 16-18 metre Spino then the Spino would probably win. I think the Rex is better suited for fighting, but it usually fought against animals similar sizes to it (Tyrannosaurs) and hunted animals usually smaller than it. Spino is just too big for Rex
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MysteryMeat
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theropod
Dec 28 2012, 08:49 PM
I repeat myself, I don´t see any reason to suspect drastically different proportions from Suchomimus or baryonyx-unless there is anything pointing out to it, to date soemthing that doesn´t exist.
Measurements of Baryonyx from The Theropod Database:

First dorsal (91 mm), second dorsal (108 mm), third dorsal (92 mm)... fifth dorsal (92 mm), sixth dorsal (88 mm)...eighth dorsal centrum (93 mm)...eleventh dorsal (105 mm), thirteenth dorsal centrum (108 mm), fourteenth dorsal (110 mm)

proximal caudal (134 mm), proximal caudal (144 mm), proximal caudal (140 mm)

The average length of the proximal caudals, at 139.3cm, is 41.3% longer than the average of the 9 complete dorsals, at 98.6cm
If you compare the proximal caudals to the mid-dorsals, it's 53.1% longer.

While in Spinosaurus, based on Stromer's reconstruction and diagrams, the lone caudal (one with neural arch pointing backwards), is only about 13% longer than the average dorsal. I obtained the number from measuring the drawings.
According to Jaime Headden's reconstruction, the longest vertebrae centrum becomes a mid dorsal, as you can see in the picture below.
Posted Image
This reconstruction is consistent with the latest studies, also supported by Cau. You can see the dorsals are actually a lot longer than the proximal caudal, just the opposite as in Baryonyx.


Plus, Spino holotype's dorsals are 190mm long on average, which is 193% longer than those of Baryonyx's.
If Spino holotype has same proportions as Baryonyx, it would be 17.4 meters long, which is 3 meters longer than the most liberal estimate for its length. Clearly, Spino has drastically different proportions than Baryonyx holotype, which I believe is due to the fact it has a much shorter tail relative to its body.

In the case of Suchomimus, I have no idea. I cannot find any measurements of its vertebra. I wish Sereno would spend more time writing osteologies.

Edited by MysteryMeat, Dec 29 2012, 11:10 AM.
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Ausar
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I still think a minimum-sized Spinosaurus would lose to a T.rex. Maximum-sized however, big T is screwed.
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MysteryMeat
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theropod
Dec 28 2012, 08:49 PM
that has nothing to do with the point. of 31 T. rexes, Sue is the largest (except for single toebones that are hard to even assign to a phalanx position...). That has nothing to do with others being more fragmentary than Sue, they are still smaller than her even tough not completely known. Would you say the holotype of spinosaurus was larger than the Dal Sasso specimen because it was fragmentary?
Completely untrue.
UCMP 137538 is a pedal phalanx IV-3, it's a lot bigger than that of Sue's.

MOR 1126 includes a pedal phalanx II-1. It's slightly bigger than Sue's. Its other remains are reported to be bigger than Sue's by Jack Horner.
It's listed as II-2 in the paper Cannibalism in Tyrannosaurus rex, if so then it's a gigantic II-2.

MOR 008 has the largest reconstructed skull of any Tyrannosaurus. MOR 008 is also a T. "X", according to Larson, along with Samson and AMNH 5027. Larson reported that T. X has proportionally shorter skulls than T. rex in his book Tyrannosaurus, the Tyrant King. So it could have a proportionally larger body just like Samson, which would make it a lot bigger than Sue. If you think it's silly to question that Spino MSNM V4047 is larger than holotype, then wouldn't it be the same to question a rex with a bigger skull and a relatively smaller head is bigger than another with a smaller head?
MOR 008's maxilla is smaller than that of Sue's, but the whole skull is longer, which shows that smaller maxilla doesn't necassarily mean smaller skull, and vice versa.

There are also similar sized specimens like LACM 23844, UCMP 118742, and a couple others of which I can't recall the exact specimen numbers.

Lastly, there's UCMP 118742. It's maxilla is slightly shorter than that of Sue's (Sue has a huge maxilla btw), is only 15-17 years old.
This specimen shows that there are much younger, still actively growing rexes that has attained about the same size as Sue. One could also speculate that we might find more complete, and larger specimens than Sue in the future. Time will tell.
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SpinoInWonderland
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MysteryMeat
Dec 29 2012, 12:16 PM
there's UCMP 118742. It's maxilla is slightly shorter than that of Sue's (Sue has a huge maxilla btw), is only 15-17 years old.
This specimen shows that there are much younger, still actively growing rexes that has attained about the same size as Sue
That only means that we can't use the same growth curve
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MysteryMeat
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brolyeuphyfusion
Dec 29 2012, 02:43 PM
MysteryMeat
Dec 29 2012, 12:16 PM
there's UCMP 118742. It's maxilla is slightly shorter than that of Sue's (Sue has a huge maxilla btw), is only 15-17 years old.
This specimen shows that there are much younger, still actively growing rexes that has attained about the same size as Sue
That only means that we can't use the same growth curve
For what reasons?
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