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Giganotosaurus carolinii v Tyrannosaurus rex
Topic Started: Jan 31 2012, 05:48 PM (110,330 Views)
Taipan
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Giganotosaurus carolinii
Giganotosaurus ("giant southern lizard"), was a carcharodontosaurid dinosaur that lived 93 to 89 million years ago during the Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous period. It is one of the longest known terrestrial carnivores, bigger than Tyrannosaurus, but in length and weight, smaller than Spinosaurus. Although longer than T. rex, G. carolinii was lighter and had a much smaller braincase that was the size and shape of a banana. A well-developed olfactory region means it probably had a good sense of smell. Titanosaur fossils have been recovered near the remains of Giganotosaurus, leading to speculation that these carnivores may have preyed on the giant herbivores. Fossils of related carcharodontosaurid fossils grouped closely together may indicate pack hunting, a behavior that could possibly extend to Giganotosaurus itself. he holotype specimen's (MUCPv-Ch1) skeleton was about 70% complete and included parts of the skull, a lower jaw, pelvis, hindlimbs and most of the backbone. The premaxillae, jugals, quadratojugals, the back of the lower jaws and the forelimbs are missing. Various estimates find that it measured somewhere between 12.2 and 13 m (40 and 43 ft) in length, and between 6.5 and 13.3 tons in weight. A second, more fragmentary, specimen (MUCPv-95) has also been identified, found in 1987 by Jorge Calvo. It is only known from the front part of the left dentary which is 8% larger than the equivalent bone from the holotype. This largest Giganotosaurus specimen is estimated to represent an individual with a skull length of 195 cm (6.40 ft), compared to the holotype's estimated at 1.80 m (5.9 ft) skull, making it likely that Giganotosaurus had the largest skull of any known theropod. Giganotosaurus surpassed Tyrannosaurus in mass by at least half a ton (the upper size estimate for T. rex is 9.1 t). Additionally several single teeth, discovered from 1987 onwards, have been referred to the species.

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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. 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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Prehistoric Cat
Jan 31 2012, 04:53 PM
Giganotosaurus VS Tyrannosaurus
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bone crusher
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At equal weight T rex would still be slightly stronger by being proportionally bulkier and more robust in build, it's probably bot the sole determine factor to win a fight but it definitely helped. A single slash damage from Giga's bite would not kill the rex instantly but a bone crushing bite could, it would take more bites from Giga to kill the rex.

Now since we only have one Giga specimen worthy of meaningful discussion, currently I place it in the middle ground among all the rex specimens we've found. I think that's as fair as this fight goes.
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DarkGricer
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bone crusher
Jun 28 2015, 06:31 PM
A single slash damage from Giga's bite would not kill the rex instantly but a bone crushing bite could, it would take more bites from Giga to kill the rex.
Errr... Yes. A single slashing bite COULD be fatal, or at least take the T.rex out of the fight. Just imagine if Giganotosaurus got a bite on the T.rex's throat. All those soft, vital parts are gonna get sliced up. A bite like that would quickly prove fatal.
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bone crusher
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DarkGricer
Jun 28 2015, 08:35 PM
bone crusher
Jun 28 2015, 06:31 PM
A single slash damage from Giga's bite would not kill the rex instantly but a bone crushing bite could, it would take more bites from Giga to kill the rex.
Errr... Yes. A single slashing bite COULD be fatal, or at least take the T.rex out of the fight. Just imagine if Giganotosaurus got a bite on the T.rex's throat. All those soft, vital parts are gonna get sliced up. A bite like that would quickly prove fatal.
And T rex would just stand still and let it bite its throat right? Point is Both animal could kill by biting the throat if opportunity allows but T rex has one more option to kill instantly by biting the neck while Giga simply couldn't. So yeah more odds at winning, simple as that.
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theropod
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And Gigantosaurus would just stand still and let T. rex crush its neck?
For the last time, a Giganotosaurus biting the neck will end the fight, it does not have to break the vertebrae to do that (although with a bite force of over 3t clamping down on them, it could still probably cause some damage, just like T. rex could cause some damage to the throat despite its blunt teeth). It would easily damage the neck musculature, ligaments and tendons to the extent that T. rex could not support its head any more, and a theropod unable to support its own head is a dead theropod.

As for strength, regardless of the fact that you are repeating yourself without elaborating, "slightly" just isn’t enough.
Edited by theropod, Jun 28 2015, 09:02 PM.
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steakbush1357
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@DarkGricer

Hmmm perhaps you are right. Looking at the picture the only thing that stands out to me regarding muscle mass is that Tyrannosaurus appears to have more muscle in the neck region, though given the positioning on both animals I could be wrong. Not sure how this would help T.Rex much though. If T.Rex does have a small strength advantage in the neck and thighs, I wonder whether this would cancel out the size advantage as far as which animal is more likely to overpower the other.

Regarding the brain, though, unless I am wrong I believe someone stated that T.Rex having a large cerebellum could prove useful. Actually, I'm going to revise my earlier claim. Things could be quite even in this fight. I'll look to find a source regarding brain size for both, as well as which areas of the brain may have been larger.
Edited by steakbush1357, Jun 28 2015, 09:18 PM.
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theropod
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^A larger cerebellum could prove useful (for coordination and reactions)–I was among those who stated that. But in all probability T. rex doesn’t have a significantly larger cerebellum at all.

According to Carabajal & Canale 2010, the holotype of G. carolinii has an endocast volume of approximately 275 ml. Following Larsson et al. 2000 the T. rex AMNH 5029 has an endocast volume of 343ml, of which 112ml are cerebrum.

Following the relative size of the cerebrum in Carcharodontosaurus (24%), we’d expect that of Giganotosaurus to be 66ml, which means that the brain volumes without that part are 209ml and 231ml, not that big a difference (i.e. the difference in brain size is mostly due to forebrain enlargement, not enlargement of the other parts), especially when considering this is only a proxy for the actual brain size, which was smaller than the volume of the endocast to an unknown degree, and how variable brain sizes seem to be even within a single genus of carcharodontosaur.

So in conclusion, I don’t think we can make much of an argument from brain size.

–––References:
Carabajal, Adriana P.; Canale, Juan I. (2010): Cranial endocast of the carcharodontosaurid theropod Giganotosaurus carolinii CORIA & SALGADO, 1995. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie Abhandlungen Vol. 258 (2) pp. 249-256
Larsson, Hans C.E.; Sereno, Paul C.; Wilson, Jeffrey A. (2000): Forebrain Enlargement among non-avian Theropod Dinosaurs. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Vol. 20 (3) pp. 615-618
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bone crusher
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theropod
Jun 28 2015, 09:02 PM
And Gigantosaurus would just stand still and let T. rex crush its neck?
For the last time, a Giganotosaurus biting the neck will end the fight, it does not have to break the vertebrae to do that (although with a bite force of over 3t clamping down on them, it could still probably cause some damage, just like T. rex could cause some damage to the throat despite its blunt teeth). It would easily damage the neck musculature, ligaments and tendons to the extent that T. rex could not support its head any more, and a theropod unable to support its own head is a dead theropod.

As for strength, regardless of the fact that you are repeating yourself without elaborating, "slightly" just isn’t enough.
That's just wishful thinking on your end, one bite on the neck from Giga would only cut through a few inches of surface tissue, it could cause a nasty wound later on but certainly not killing it instantly. You have nothing to back up your claim, not one science docu or paper have stated Giga could kill large prey item in one bite, yet many have agreed that a bone crushing bite from t Rex could kill a large prey in an instant.
I'll elaborate the strength factor again for you. Bigger neck, shoulders, chest, thighs and torso could drastically increase your ability to tackle, ram, wrestle etc, at equal weight, the muscle distribution of giga is more towards length whereas t rex is width. So of course being wider means more sturdier and compact. So yeah rex is slightly stronger tho I never said strength alone is enough did I? It's 55/45 - 60/40 for t rex at equal weight.
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DarkGricer
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Sure, maybe the teeth only portrude a couple inches from the jaw, but Giganotosaurus is't just gonna chomp and let go of the neck. Once it grabs hold, it could sort of wiggle around, sawing through tissue , deeper and deeper. If T.rex manages to dislodge Giganotosaurus before it's dead, it's probably already bleeding to death, with severed musculature on its neck anyway.
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theropod
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What I’d consider wishful thinking is the notion that an animal with tooth crowns 7-10cm long and a bite force of several tons would only leave some superficial scratches. Soft tissues deform under pressure, it is wishful thinking that the wound would only be as deep as the teeth are long, even in a perfectly static bite, and that is not even accounting for any saw-like motions (whose effect should be obvious, beyond causing far more damage at a given depth they will also help penetrating deeper).

If you require more visual demonstration, here you go:
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Here you have your superficial slashes only "a few" inches deep, caused by an animal that has only a fraction of the size and power of a Giganotosaurus.

And then, of course, slicing "only" about 10cm deep would already suffice to cause some severe damage to the dorsal neck muscles, even in a specimen as big and robust as sue (look at a scientific restoration!). Moreover, don’t forget that if it bit the neck, that also means that most likely its jower jaw would be messing up the throat at the same time in some way.

I consider documentaries irrelevant, ans ad for papers, none have explicitely stated T. rex could kill large prey in one bite either.

And I severely doubt T. rex could or would try to "tackle, ram or wrestle" (what the hell is it supposed to do that with?), so there go those "bigger shoulders, chest, thighs and torso".
Edited by theropod, Jun 28 2015, 10:54 PM.
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bone crusher
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Even if the slicing bite is as damaging as you say, it's still not enough to kill the rex right away like a bone crushing bite would. Let's say they go for their necks in the same time, giga delivers a slicing wound that might cause serious injury but then the moment rex lands its bite, it's game over for giga, just like that. Will the rex die shortly after? Maybe, maybe not depends how fast it heals. I've seen lions with deep gashes on their bodies from warthog tusks, yet don't seem to die right away and even survived later on. That pic of a bite mark from a great white is far from sufficient to prove your point, the fish is much bigger than the seal thus it killed it obviously, if biting on a similar sized great white, it would not kill the shark right away.
And why would you doubt a t rex or any theropod wouldn't try to tackle, ram or wrestle one another? They would try their best to overpower their opponent in order to deliver a killing blow, just like how big cats use their limbs to subdue a prey and deliver a throat or neck bite. In t rex's case it would try to knock giga down by ramming it then step on its head using its more powerful leg and go for the killing bite. If one animal is physically more powerful than another, why the hell wouldn't it try to use its strength advantage in a fight to kill? Keep downplaying it tho.
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theropod
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Quote:
 
Even if the slicing bite is as damaging as you say, it's still not enough to kill the rex right away like a bone crushing bite would.

No "even if", it is. Citation needed for the rest.

And even if it doesn’t kill it instantly (what a useless concept, even breaking the neck does not kill instantly, the animal is just paralysed and then dies of respiratory arrest. Not at all better than having the blood flow to the brain cut.), it has all it takes to render it defenseless, for all practical purposes that’s just as good.

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That pic of a bite mark from a great white is far from sufficient to prove your point, the fish is much bigger than the seal
And yet that wound is way deeper than a few inches, in simple absolute terms, even though it comes from a much smaller predator. Even if that wound was on a blue whale, it would still be that large, it just would not be as large relative to the animal.

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And why would you doubt a t rex or any theropod wouldn't try to tackle, ram or wrestle one another?
Because it isn’t a rugby player. I once had a lengthy debate about rugby players and their relation to the way animals fight when it was about Utahraptor and whether it would be able to throw down a polar bear. In the end, it just doesn’t work, because animals are not athletes.

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just like how big cats use their limbs to subdue a prey
You’ve identified the problem, what limbs?

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In t rex's case it would try to knock giga down by ramming it then step on its head using its more powerful leg and go for the killing bite.
While I find the first part truly ridiculous, if anything carnosaurs are the ones adapted for the latter part of what you propose.
This behaviour has actually been proposed for Allosaurus (and it is, as of my knowledge, the only non-avian theropod in which this is the case, just to mimic one of your own arguments) based on stress-fractures in metapodials (where the outer metatarsals apparently played a significant role in prey handling, hence also their greater functional autonomy compared to arctometatarsal theropods), and carnosaur foot morphology (splaying metatarsals for better control, more pointed claws, more robust tibiae…) is way more consistent with it.
For the record, I highly doubt either animal is going to do that, but if either one will try to grapple the other with its (hind)limbs, it’s the carnosaur, and not just because it is taller and has at least somewhat functional forelimbs. Having a bulky chest is truly useless for this sort of behaviour, more powerful and flexible calves and feet on the other hand…

Anyway, just biting it would be the much easier option as compared to stepping on it. Also I’ve got my doubts as to whether the latter is really viable for multi-ton animals, just because ~2t Allosaurus was capable of it.
Edited by theropod, Jun 29 2015, 02:04 AM.
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Ceratodromeus
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Quote:
 
Even if the slicing bite is as damaging as you say, it's still not enough to kill the rex right away

Can you provide any evidence that a slicing bite is going to be less effective, then?
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it's still not enough to kill the rex right away like a bone crushing bite would

Not even convinced this is going to be the - one hit wonder - if you will.
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I've seen lions with deep gashes on their bodies from warthog tusks,

Warthog tusks are not analogous to the dentition of a muti ton theropod.
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That pic of a bite mark from a great white is far from sufficient to prove your point, the fish is much bigger than the seal thus it killed it obviously, if biting on a similar sized great white,

To better show the point illustrated by theropod, hers a monitor lizard bite on a humans hand:
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I believe this was a crocodile monitor bite. Note how deep the wound is
Lace monitor bite:
Posted Image
Obviously, these monitor are no where near where the weight of the human. Yet the damage caused by their bites were detrimental.
Looking at an Argentine tegu's bite on a human hand now:
Posted Image
Worth noting that all three lizard species are roughly the same size at averages, note the difference?
Typically, animals with a crushing bite need to get their jaws around something small in order to break bone. Can you present evidence of animals with crushing dentition killing similarly sized animals with a singular bite? Please don't use the "no modern animals are built like T.rex" excuse, because there are no animals built like G. Carolinii today either. This kind of argument is entirely circular.
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theropod
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References for my above post
Reports stress fractures and hypothesize prey handling with feet in A. fragilis:
Rothschild, Bruce; Tanke, Darren H., Ford, Tracy (2001): Theropod Stress Fractures and Tendon Avulsions as a Clue to Activity. In: Tanke, Darren H.; Carpenter, Kenneth; Skrepnick, Michael W.: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life. Bloomington pp. 331-336

Detail the more robust calves of carnosaurs as opposed to Tyrannosaurs, as well as the more pointed claws and the differing morphology of the metatarsus:
Holtz, Thomas R.; Molnar, Ralph E.; Currie, Philip J. (2004): Basal Tetanurae. In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; Osmólska, Halszka: The Dinosauria. Berkeley pp. 71-110
Holtz, Thomas R. (2004): Tyrannosauroidea. In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; Osmólska, Halszka: The Dinosauria. Berkeley pp. 111-136


Some quotes from the latter:
"The tibia, although powerfully built, is never as robust and stocky as in carnosaurs and other basal tetanurans (fig.5.19C,D).[…]The unguals are blunter and less tapered than those of carnosaurs such as Sinraptor and Allosaurus."––Holtz 2004
In other words, the parts that would be most relevant if such behaviour was used are stronger and more robust in carnosaurs.

It is quite obvious that a more flexible arrangement is advantageous for handling prey with an appendage (that’s why more cursorial animals like canids have inferior limb-grappling ability to such animals as felids or primates), so I hope I don’t have to explain that too.
The tyrannosaurid arctometatarsus is clearly an adaption for cursoriality, with the third metatarsal pinched between the other two, functionally unifying the structure when loaded (Snively & Russell 2002). The metatarsals of carnosaurs are not so-constrained in their movement, and would do a much better job at gripping, pinning and controlling prey.

If you want to look up some of the mechanics of the arctometatarsus again, here you go: Snively, Eric; Russell, Anthony P. (2002): The Tyrannosaurid Metatarsus: Bone Strain and inferred Ligament Function. Senckenbergiana lethaea, Vol. 82 (1) pp. 35-42

Of course a huge waste of time, considering it is extremely unlikely this behaviour was employed by giant theropods for reasons already mentioned.
The bite has already been dealt with very graphically though, so I guess just to be sure, explaining this in detail too doesn’t hurt anyone.
Edited by theropod, Jun 29 2015, 02:20 AM.
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Agentjaguar
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When in doubt, always go with the bigger fish.

Giganotosaurus for me.
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bone crusher
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Slicing damage is nowhere near as fatal as a crushing bite, when t rex's neck is sliced it could at least still fight for a period of time, but when your neck vertebrae is crushed you are a goner. You're acting like a slicing bite from giga is as fatal as a megalodon bite lol, you're way overestimating it.
Theropods don't have to be rugby players to know how to ram or grapple each other, they might not strictly do it but they would use it whenever and however possible to aid them in a fight. Who are you to say they wouldn't ram each other just because giga is at a disadvantage at doing so?
Big cats use their limbs, theropod could still use their shoulders, head, body and all the works. Oh and a head to head ram would certainly shatter giga's much more delicate skull.
Some slight difference in the shape of metatasals would not matter much here especially when the tyrannosaur is much more robust, powerfully built overall and with bigger size to boot. A bulky chest would surely aid you in close quarter body to body impact and resisting damage to internal organs.
You should know just coz they're not rugby players animals could still perform similar form of physical contact in a fight. Crocs fight by smashing their skulls to one another aside from bite each other. The one with the weaker skull would surely give in sooner or later.
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