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Steppe Rhinoceros v Tyrannosaurus rex
Topic Started: Feb 10 2012, 06:44 PM (33,456 Views)
Taipan
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Steppe Rhinoceros - Elasmotherium caucasicum
Elasmotherium ("Thin Plate Beast") is an extinct genus of giant rhinoceros endemic to Eurasia during the Late Pliocene through the Pleistocene, documented from 2.6 mya to as late as 50,000 years ago, possibly later, in the Late Pleistocene, an approximate span of slightly less than 2.6 million years. Three species are recognised. The best known, E. sibiricum was the size of a mammoth and is thought to have borne a large, thick horn on its forehead which was used for defense, attracting mates, driving away competitors, sweeping snow from the grass in winter and digging for water and plant roots. Like all rhinoceroses, elasmotheres were herbivorous. Unlike any others, its high-crowned molars were ever-growing. Its legs were longer than those of other rhinos and were designed for galloping, giving it a horse-like gait. The Russian paleontologists of the 19th century who discovered and named the initial fossils were influenced by ancient legends of a huge unicorn roaming the steppes of Siberia. To date no evidence either contradicts or confirms the possibility that Elasmotherium survived into legendary times. The most reconstructed species is perhaps E. sibiricum by generations of scientists working at the Paleontological Museum in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. The majority of the fossils fall or have fallen within their national jurisdiction. The dimensions and morphology of the various reconstructions vary considerably. They are for the most part estimating the gross details from the minutiae. However, they all agree on the general order of magnitude, that sibiricum was comparable to a Mammoth and was rather larger than the contemporary Woolly Rhinoceros. E. sibiricum had a measured shoulder height of approximately 2 metres (6.6 ft). To it, however, must be added the height of a massive hump anchored on the fin-like transverse processes extending from the top of the cervical vertebrae, a maximum of 53 centimetres (1.74 ft). The total height then was in excess of 253 centimetres (8.30 ft). The measured length of sibiricum (from a nearly complete skeleton found at Gaevskaya) is 4.5 metres (15 ft). Extrapolation from the greater size of caucasicum molars obtains a length of 5 metres (16 ft)—5.2 metres (17 ft) for caucasicum. According to Legendre's formula, E. sibiricum had a mass of over 4,000 kilograms (3.9 long tons; 4.4 short tons); E. caucasicum, 5,000 kilograms (4.9 long tons; 5.5 short tons). These weights place Elasmotherium in the "really huge" category of all Rhinocerotidae and therefore the animal was "strongly brachyopodial;" that is, they required feet of large contact area to prevent sinking into the soil. The feet were unguligrade, the front larger than the rear: purely tridactyl on Digits II-IV in the rear, but with an extra vestigial digit, I, in the front.

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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
Feb 10 2012, 01:07 AM
Tyrannosaurus Rex v Elasmotherium Caucasicum
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Nergigante
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The article said that the tracks were from a adoscelent t rex, and that they could not prove that the t rex could go faster than the speed limit shown in the account,One previous study of a single footprint of a large tyrannosaur suggests that the beast could have been traveling as fast as 11 kilometers per hour (6.8 miles per hour), says Eric Snively, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. That's still a speed that a halfway decent amateur runner could beat
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buteo
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some scientists say t-rex was a scavenger not an impressive predator
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DarkGricer
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Quote:
 
Then, they measured the distance between the footprints and used an equation based on observations of living, walking bipeds to estimate the dinosaur’s walking speed, yielding a result between 4.5 and 8 kilometers per hour (2.8 to 5 miles per hour),

Key word: Walking speed. That's how fast a T.rex would have been while it was casually walking around. If it's chasing or running away, it almost certainly would have gone a lot faster. T.rex has pretty long legs, and thus a pretty big stride. Going faster than 5 mph would have been easy for an animal like that.

Also T.rex being a scavenger has long been debunked by the bunch of fossils showing herbivores that survived a T.rex attack, which would only happen if T.rex, you know, attacked them in the first place.
Edited by DarkGricer, May 11 2016, 04:38 AM.
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Ausar
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BlackGrizzly
 
The article said that the tracks were from a adoscelent t rex, and that they could not prove that the t rex could go faster than the speed limit shown in the account,One previous study of a single footprint of a large tyrannosaur suggests that the beast could have been traveling as fast as 11 kilometers per hour (6.8 miles per hour), says Eric Snively, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. That's still a speed that a halfway decent amateur runner could beat
The trackways don't prove crap about Tyrannosaurus' top speed. The point regarding this is even made in the article.

Quote:
 
The analysis doesn't prove that T. Rex couldn't have gone faster, however. Because trackways are records of single events—one walk along a lakeshore, for example—the odds are that any particular set of footprints doesn’t capture a dinosaur’s peak performance, says Thomas Holtz Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland, College Park. Moreover, he notes, the types of sediment that are good for preserving footprints are typically wet and sloppy, not the best surface on which a dinosaur could run full speed. McCrea agrees: “There are as yet no known trackways of running tyrannosaurs, so we don’t know for sure just what their upper speed limit was.”


Point 1: A trackway does not necessarily indicate running performance, as the animal that made them simply may not have been trying to go as fast as it could. The individual here was walking, hence the trackway says nothing about its running performance.

Point 2: The specimen was likely walking on muddy ground, which has obvious handicaps on a moving animal.

Point 3: We don't know of any trackway that was made by running tyrannosaurids. Therefore the footprint you mentioned that indicated a speed of 11 km/h also proves nothing on running performance.

buteo
 
some scientists say t-rex was a scavenger not an impressive predator
You bringing up this clearly erroneous, illogical "argument" (using the term loosely) that no serious paleontologist currently advocates shows that you're either ignorant, desperate, or both.
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buteo
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or maybe that means you overrate t-rex , you are mostly being a fanboy and you are refusing to see what rival animal can do, you are focusing on only t-rex ,this is wrong
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Jinfengopteryx
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buteo
May 11 2016, 05:12 AM
or maybe that means you overrate t-rex , you are mostly being a fanboy and you are refusing to see what rival animal can do, you are focusing on only t-rex ,this is wrong
Apart from the fact that Ausar is clearly less biased than you, even if he was a fanboy, this would not refute any of his points.

As noted before, there are fossils of herbivores with HEALED T. rex bite marks.
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Ausar
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buteo
 
or maybe that means you overrate t-rex , you are mostly being a fanboy and you are refusing to see what rival animal can do, you are focusing on only t-rex ,this is wrong
What's this? Fanboy accusations? Yup...you're desperate.

You thinking that a >6,000 kilogram, endothermic, obligate carnivore can plausibly be an obligate scavenger indicates that you're underrating. Tell you what: you can either do your research on the Internet on why the obligate scavenger hypothesis is flat out wrong or I can illustrate it for you, whenever I have the time that is. To start you off, Jinfengopteryx mentioned one of the points to you above, a point that actually settles the question by itself (HEALED bite marks on other dinosaurs indicates that it attempted to hunt them).
Edited by Ausar, May 11 2016, 05:24 AM.
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Black Ice
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The only dangerous part of that horn is the tip, I don't see why people think these things are like flesh rendering cutlass.
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buteo
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wait a second i never underrate t-rex no one should underrate, thats because i called you fanboy, you focused on t-rex, i just mentioned what an elasmotherium could do and you understood that as underrating t-rex ? this is absolutely wrong maybe you should research what an elasmotherium can do or what a rhinoceros can do, what are their strengths or weakness or abilities, i just mentioned some scientists said t-rex was a scavenger and like most predators it was a scavenger and science still needs findings and evvidence to claim an exact fact, we are still discussing on hypothesis
Black Ice
May 11 2016, 05:30 AM
The only dangerous part of that horn is the tip, I don't see why people think these things are like flesh rendering cutlass.
do you doubt that this horn with a superb momentum can not be deadly ? really ? it is surely not made of steel but this horn would definetely penetrate t-rex tough skin like a cavalry lance penetrate a soldier with chain mail , i just gave example it may not be precise
Edited by buteo, May 11 2016, 05:43 AM.
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Black Ice
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Unless the rhino which probably had terrible eyesight has the accuracy of a marksman odds are that horns not killing the T.Rex out of anything but luck.
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Ausar
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buteo
 
wait a second i never underrate t-rex no one should underrate,
You brought up the obligate scavenger hypothesis once proposed for Tyrannosaurus->implies that you think it's possible that Tyrannosaurus was an obligate scavenger and that this detracts from its formidability, all in spite of the fact that there are ample counterarguments against the points made for the hypothesis, as well as direct fossil evidence proving that it wasn't. That kinda sounds like underrating to me.

buteo
 
thats because i called you fanboy, you focused on t-rex,
Sounds like a baseless accusation to me.

buteo
 
i just mentioned what an elasmotherium could do and you understood that as underrating t-rex ?
Once again:

Ausar
 
You brought up the obligate scavenger hypothesis once proposed for Tyrannosaurus->implies that you think it's possible that Tyrannosaurus was an obligate scavenger and that this detracts from its formidability, all in spite of the fact that there are ample counterarguments against the points made for the hypothesis, as well as direct fossil evidence proving that it wasn't. That kinda sounds like underrating to me.


buteo
 
this is absolutely wrong
Sure, if I had done what you claim I did.

buteo
 
maybe you should research what an elasmotherium can do or what a rhinoceros can do, what are their strengths or weakness or abilities,
I know full well what rhinoceri are capable of. The fact that you decided to bring up the obligate scavenger hypothesis for Tyrannosaurus to call forth its formidability despite the fact the solid arguments/evidence against it suggests you should do research on Tyrannosaurus.

buteo
 
i just mentioned some scientists said t-rex was a scavenger and like most predators it was a scavenger and science still needs findings and evvidence to claim an exact fact, we are still discussing on hypothesis
This part is confusing me. The part of this excerpt that says "like most predators" implies that you think Tyrannosaurus was a predator (i.e. capable of active predation). Yet your first comment on the whole scavenging matter seems to imply that you brought up the obligate scavenger hypothesis. Which is it?

Anyway, obviously Tyrannosaurus would have scavenged if given the chance, but it was certainly also capable of active predation.
Edited by Ausar, May 11 2016, 06:00 AM.
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Carcharadon
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I find it ridiculous all-together that the "T.rex was a scavenger" even had to be discussed at this point in time.
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buteo
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what the hell ? i just said some scientists said t-rex was a scavenger , i didnt claim anything and the science still needs findings about that maybe new findings proof about t-rex hunting ability maybe not , all we are discussing on hypothesis not exact facts
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DarkGricer
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We have pretty much the best proof you can get of T,rex being a hunter, namely several fossils of prey items that survived being attacked by a T.rex. Even better, one of these prey items is a Triceratops with a horn that was bitten in half, demonstrating that T.rex knew how to disarm its target. If it was a scavenger, none of those fossils would exist. The only conclusion we can make is that it was in fact a hunter.
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Mirounga leonina
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buteo
May 11 2016, 06:17 AM
what the hell ? i just said some scientists said t-rex was a scavenger , i didnt claim anything and the science still needs findings about that maybe new findings proof about t-rex hunting ability maybe not , all we are discussing on hypothesis not exact facts
But you did make the claim indirectly, and they call it an innuendo. An innuendo is a slanter, which are rhetorical devices used to present the subject in a biased way, either positively or negatively, and if I had to guess you probably pulled that from the OP description.
Quote:
 
Tyrannosaurus rex may have been an apex predator, preying upon hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, although some experts have suggested it was primarily a scavenger.

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